LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

shelf 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/ 

V 



rULriT OB AT GUY. IRISH ELOQUENCE. 



THREE LECTURES, 

DELIVERED IN CHICAGO, 

ST. PATEICK'S DAT, 1880, 



Rt. Rev. JOHN HENNESSY, D.D., 

BISHOP OF DUBUQUE. 

Rt. Rev. JOHN JOSEPH HOGAN, D.D., 

BISHOP OF ST. JOSEPH. 

Rt. Rev. JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING, D.D., 

BISHOP OF PEORIA. 



BY BEQUEST OF 

THE IRISH-AMERICAI COUNCIL OF CHICAGO, 

IN AID OF 

THE IRISH RELIEF FUND. 



P. T. SHERLOCK, PUBLISHER, 
CHICAGO. 

1880. 



ON 



-^h^ 

^^1 



€\ 



THE LIBRARY I 
OF CONGRESS; 

WASHlNGTOKt' 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

P. T. SHERLOCK. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED 

BY 

THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY. 



ERRATA. 

On p. 13, line 29, for Sillartin read St. Martin. 

On p. 14, 4th line from bottom, for Levins read Lerins. 

On p. 32, line 20, for annealed read sealed. 

From the 2d line of p 39 to the i8th line of p. 40, in- 
clusive, should be read following p 37, as it is a continua- 
tion of the same idea. Its omission will connect p. 38 
and the rest of p. 40. 



CONTENTS. 



THE EVER FAITHFUL ISLAND. 

^^Rt. Rev. John Hennesst, D.D., 

Bishop of Dubuque, Iowa. 



THE SORROWS OF THE OLD LAND. 

Rt. Rev. John J. Hogan, D.D., 

Bishop of St. Joseph, Mo. 



ENGLAND'S CRIME. 
Rt. Rev. J. L. Spalding, D.D,, 

Bishop of Peoria, Ilia. 



INTKODUCTOEY 



In the fulfilment of a promise made in the preface 
to The Case of Ireland Stated, viz: "should cir- 
cumstances justify it, that work would be followed by 
a series of other books of such sterling material as will 
enable not only Irishmen in America, but also Hhose 
of the manor born ' to learn something of a People and 
a Land, who, though victims of the most adverse cir- 
cumstances for centuries, have nevertheless filled no 
small space in the world's history." 

It is deeply to be regretted that more of such mate- 
rial, as is herevvdth presented, has not been preserved 
in permanent form. The cause is not very difiicult to 
discover: Eloquence is the purest native gem Ireland 
possesses — it is what Chief Baron "Woulfe said public 
opinion in Ireland should be, "Racy of the Soil." 

It loses much by transplanting from its native 
tongue, yet will compare favorably with the best in 
any language. Its striking peculiarities are that it is 
spontaneous and extemporaneous, so that to preserve 
and transmit the true utterances of an Irish orator, he 
must be followed bv a faithful short-hand reporter. 

(5) 



INTRODTJCTOEY. 



'No written desk-essays would fill the place of a pul- 
pit orator to the satisfaction of his Irish congregation, 
and were it attempted, doubt would spread itself over 
the minds of his hearers as to his nativity, if not even 
as to his very" priesthood. 

Eloquence was a quality ir'nirent in the natives of 
Ireland even before the advent of St. Patrick. By the 
study of the Gospels, the writings of the Fathers— 
the ancient languages, and the inspiration of Christian- 
ity, it was improved and extended; and — when the days 
of Persecution and Penal Laws came — it was intensi- 
fied by prescription, suffering and danger. It was in 
those times when a liushed whisper went round the vil- 
lage that the foot- sore and wearied man who had arrived 
after dark [was the beloved "Soggartli;" — that he 
would remain two days and nights in the neighbor- 
hood to shrive them of their sins, and that at a certain 
hour and place — then named — he would offer for them 
the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in some dense wood, 
deep glen, or mountain-pass, guarded by a faithful 
sentinel on the hill-top to report the approach of the 
British soldiery, or the still more merciless Protestant 
yeomanry, who were wont to massacre them while at 
their simple devotions. Here it was, in such scenes 
as this, that the eloquence of the Irish church was nur- 
tured and preserved — a rock or simple eminence serv- 
ing for a pulpit — the only architecture the trees of the 
forest — the only canopy that of the blue vault of 
heaven; thus were the humble devotees of a persecu- 
ted race admonished in the sweet accents of true Irish 



INTKODUCTOKT. 7 

eloquence to " hold fast to the faith once delivered to 
the saints," 

"And look from Nature up to Nature's God." 

It was during these dark and tronbled days, hiding 
in the mountain fastnesses, sheltered in the deep de- 
files, or wandering over the almost impenetrable bogs 
of the island, that these devoted servants of God — 
with a price upon their heads and a scaffold darkly 
looming before their visions — while faithfully preach- 
ing the faith they also preserved the native language, 
its Poetry, and its Music, and transmitted it from 
generation to generation with the God-like gift of elo- 
quence, which to-day, after centuries of disaster and 
gloom, are the living testimonies of a culture and civ- 
ilization that ante-dates Christianity itself. 

The Irish- American Council, representing the Irish 
Societies of Chicago, with a most praiseworthy nna- 
nimity, resolved to forego the gratification their mem- 
bers and friends always have experienced in the mag- 
nificent parade with which they have been wont to do 
honor to Ireland's anniversary. It was instead deter- 
mined to invite a distinguished Prelate of Irish na- 
tionality to deliver a discourse in each of the tliree 
divisions of the city, respectively. The resolve of the 
Societies being communicated to the Right Rev. John 
Hennessy, Bishop of Dubnqne; the Right Rev. J. J. 
Hogan, Bishop of St. Joseph, Missouri, and the Right 
Rev. J. L. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria, accompanying 
an invitation to each of them to deliver a discourse on 
St. Patrick's Day, the proceeds to be applied to the 



8 ' INTEODIJCTOKY. 

relief of distress in Ireland, tlie project met the cor- 
dial assent of eacli of the learned and patriotic prelates. 

It is, to the Publisher, one of the most gratifying 
actions of his life, that he has been partially instru- 
mental in rescuing these noble discourses from oblivion, 
and presenting them to the people in a shape that tliey 
can preserve and hand their children to study as grand 
lessons in Irish history; also as affording a lasting 
memento to the members of the various Irlbh Societiea 
in Chicago, of the self-abnegation they exhibited in 
their noble efforts to relieve the distress of their breth- 
ren " at home." 

The Publisher. 

Chicago, March, 1880. 



THE EVEE FAITHFUL ISLAND. 



THE RT. EEV. JOHN HENNESSY,D. D. , 



BISHOP OP DUBUQUE, 

Delivered tlie following- discourse before an immense congrega- 
tion, at the Church of the Holy Family, on West Twelfth Street, 
near Blue Island Avenue. The Bishop spoke as follows: 

My dear Brethren: The occasion that has brought 
us together this evening is sad indeed. Ireland's suffer- 
ing has touched your hearts, and you are here to do some- 
thing to relieve it. Our national festival is robed in. 
mourning; the grand processions are abandoned; the fes- 
tive halls deserted; and our people are seeking comfort 
in prayer around their altars. 

1 am not here to depress your spirits more. I would 
rather cheer you, and make you feel a pride in the Island 
of Sorrow by pointing out to you her record of enduring 
fame. 

The first nation in God's Church is the land you love 
so well. In fidelity to God and attachment to her faith, 
she is without an equal among the nations of the earth. 
Her services, her suffering, her sacrifices in the cause of 
religion, amply attest this. 

HER EECEPTIOIS' OF THE FAITH 

and the development it received at her hands, are unex- 
ampled in history. When the heavenly message was pro- 
posed to her she listened attentively and respectfullv, 

(9) 



10 LECTURE BY 

and when satisfied of its origin, she received it at once 
with gratefid reverence and gave it a home in her heart 
of hearts. So far from offering violence to those who pro- 
posed it, asother nations did, she could never do enough 
to make known to them the depth of her veneration and 
love of them. They were to her " Ministers of Christ and 
dispensers of God's mysteries. " Her conversion is the 
work of one man in sixty years. It is complete and 
unstained by blood. Contrast the conduct of her Kings 
and Chiefs and Clansmen with that of Rome's Rulers, their 
officers and subjects throughout the empire, where 
after the labors of the Apostles and Apostolic men con- 
tinued without interruption for three centuries under the 
very eye of Christ's Vicar on earth, the faith they would 
plant is supposed to be so thoroughly washed out in the 
blood of its professors that a medal is struck by Imperial 
command to commemorate the extinction of the Christian 



HER DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAITH 

is as remarkable and exceptional as her reception of it. 
Whatever head and heart, ample possessions, untiring 
labor and great austerity could do for the growth and 
grandeur of God's kingdom on earth, was done in holy 
Ireland by all classes of her people with the most marked 
success from the time of her Apostle's death to that of 
her invasion by the Dane. Her many monasteries by 
lake and river with their thousands of monks and rich en- 
dowments in land and money; her famous free schools 
scattered all over, to which foreigners flocked in ship-loads 
from all parts of Europe, emigrants to Christ; her un- 
doubted intellectual pre-eminence among her sister na- 
tions for two hundred years and more, together with the 
countless and signal testimonies of strangers to her wond- 
rous learning and virtue, seem to justify the title of Is- 
land of Saints and Doctors, which* her pupils from afar 
gave her, amid the acclamations of Christendom. To be 
a saint and doctor is to be on the very pinnacle of Fame's 
temple; but one nation ever reached that eminence. 
Let us next see what she did and suffered for the faith 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 11 

of Christ during three great storms which assailed God's 
church at different times with unusual fury, and threaten- 
ed its destruction, namely : 

EAEBAKISM, MOHAMMEDANISM, AND PEOTESTANTISM. 

When Ireland commenced to send out to the continent 
her missionaries and her scholars, and long before that the 
country east of the Rhine, north and east of the Danube to 
the Volga, and the White Sea, swarmed with countless 
nations of savages, differing but little from our Indians 
under many aspects. From this they pushed south and 
west in their mission of ruin towards France and Spain 
and Italy. They represented brute force, and were utter- 
ly destitute of the first elements of civilization. They were 
its deadly enemies wherever they encountered it. It was 
to be feared that the Church could not escape the doom 
of the State. 

In the providence of God the barbarians were not only 
to tear down the old Roman Empire, but were to form new 
governments on its ruins. They were to take the place 
of the effete society which they were destined to break 
up — they were to be the rulers and peoples of a time that 
was near at hand. If the Church were to survive in Eu- 
rope, they mast not only be restrained in their hostility 
to it, but must be made members of it. These consider- 
ations and the danger of the arrival of the Mohammedan, 
while society was yet chaotic, after the passage of the 
barbarian, will greatly enhance the value of missionary 
labor among these herce, untutored men. For three 
hundred years no nation in Europe possessed a tithe of 
Ireland's ability to serve God in this important field, she 
enjoyed peace and prosperty — was as full of zeal as of 
learning, and had twenty ecclesiastics for the one she 
needed at home. 

Not so the other countries of Europe. They were 
unable to meet local wants. Spain was Arian till the 
beginning of the seventh century, the north of Italy was 
Arian, the south of Italy was not rid of Arians and Pagans 
in the time of St. Benedict. Rome was in a state of 
anarchy and a prey to factions in the days of St. Gregory. 



12 LECTUEE BY 

The best elements of the Church in France were the 
barbarian Franks and Burgundians, recent converts from 
Fas:anism and Arianism. 

ENGLAND WAS STILL PAGAN 

in the beginning of the seventh century, and when she 
ceased to be so it was chiefly through the labors of Irish 
missionaries. If Ireland did nothing more for religion 
among the barbarians than educate freely and thoroughly 
in science and sanctity, the tens of thousands that came 
annually to her hospitable shores out of the countries 
infested by these savages, she would be richly entitled to 
the first place among the great servants of God's Church 
in this hour of peril. 

But she did much more. She sent her holy monks, as 
remarkable for zeal and austerity as for learning, in such 
countless multitudes that Germany numbers among her 
patron saints one hundred and fifteen (115) of them, 
France forty-five (45), Belgium thirty (30), and England 
(44). How suggestive are these statistics of Ireland's 
stupendous work — what other nation can point to any- 
thing at all like to them? And yet, surprising as are 
these figures, and apparently extravagant, Father O'Han- 
lon, of Dublin, at present engaged in writing the lives of 
the Irish Saints, says they are an under-statement, and 
that his work will prove them to be such. 

What ! Nearly two hundred Patron Saints in Belgium, 
France and Germ.any alone, all Irish, no account made 
of their tens of thousands of scholars and converts — and 
this an understatement! Pause, reflect. Look at the 
young giant church of the United States. How many 
noble men, priests and bishops of spotless lives and varied 
virtues have labored for the past eighty years amid trials 
and privations to raise up to God's honor this magnificent 
structure. Many of them were voluntary exiles through 
their love for souls. And yet not even one of these is authori- 
tativeiy declared a saint, or perhaps ever will be, much less 
a patron of a church or diocese. Consider this, and then 
realize as best you can the number and character of these 
Irish missionaries, whose lives were so holy, and virtues 



BISHOP HENNESST. 13 

SO great that in spite of the prejudices of race, the rava- 
ges of time, and our imperfect knowledge of their history, 
we still find not less than one hundred and ninety (190) of 
them chosen and honored as patrons by Germans, Bel- 
gians and Gauls. Is it not clear then that no people in 
Europe could labor among the barbarians as the Irish did, 
and that were it not for their services, brute force un- 
controlled would have ruined religion so completely and 
made that ruin sufficiently permanent to open a highway 
for the Mohammedan in his circuit of the earth. 

Set down England's labors on the continent to Ireland's 
credit; for the conversion of more than two-thirds of the 
heptarchy was the work of her sainted sons. What lona 
was to Scotland and the islands around it, that its colony 
in Lindisfarne was to the greater part of England. 

THE CKESCENT AND THE CROSS. 

In one hundred years after the death of Mohammed, 
his followers swept in victory over all the countries from 
Arabia to France. They trampled down the Greek, the 
Vandal, the Visigoth in Asia, in Africa and in Spain, 
Arian barbarians offered them no more eifective resist- 
ance than did Greek or Latin Catholics. If any power 
on earth can withstand them, it will be the might and 
valor of the Frank developed and animated by Catholic 
faith. It is 732, and the soldiers of the Crescent, flushed 
w^ith success, and holding, as it were, a prescriptive right 
to victory, stand four hundred thousand strong in the 
very heart of France. 

The shrine of Sillartin, the richest in the country and 
the dearest to the people, is marked out for plunder. 
The face of the invader is northward ; the Straits of Do- 
ver are not distant, and England can become an easy 
prey. The Rhine is to the right and not very far off; it 
leads up towards the Danube, and the Danube towards 
the city of Constantine, for which Christian and Saracen 
were to contend so long, as being the key to the West 
and the bulwark of Christendom. Who shall stop these 
proud and powerful conquerors, and how did Ireland con- 
tribute to make them wheel around? Whatever Irish 



14 LECTUEE BY 

missionaries and Ireland's pupils and converts did for re- 
ligion in two hundred years among the barbarians, pagans 
or converts, especially in France and Germany, where so 
many of their saints are honored, to that extent is Ire- 
land entitled to credit for the check given the Mohamme- 
dans on the left bank of the Loire, as she Avould be to 
any further resistance offered from the same source. This 
of itself is a strong claim, such as no other nation can ad- 
vance, and it becomes all the stronger if Catholic valor 
were the need of the hour. But there is another stronger 
still, more precise, more definite, founded on facts tliat 
cannot be questioned, which I shall now very briefly state. 
Remember, the battle of Tours was fought in 732. By 
the victory gained there Charles Martel was regarded as 
the savior of Christendom. Observe, also, that in the 
early part of the seventh century the condition of the 
Church in France was wretched in the extreme. Aus- 
trasia and Neustria were contending for the mastery; 
horrid crimes were of daily occurrence; the morals of the 
people were dissolute, and, to crown these miseries, there 
was simony in the sanctuary, and notorious laxity in the 
monastic institutions. There was a deep moral wound 
growing worse daily, and no physician at hand to cure it. 
A reformation of the Catholic body there from head to 
foot was sorely needed. The reformer came in the nick 
of time in the person of 

THE IRISH SAINT COLUMBAN, 

who founded in the Black Forest of Sequania, not far 
from the Jura, the famous monastery of Luxien, which 
was destined to change the whole face of France. 

Of this Abbey, Montalembert says that "it was the Mon- 
astic Capital of all the countries under Frank government; 
that the other Monasteries into which laxness and the sec- 
ular spirit had but too rapidly found their way, yielded one 
after another to its happy influence; that Abbots went to 
it for the strength and light they needed, and that among 
these was Conon, of the famous Monastery of Levius; 
that the great Abbey became a nursery of bishops and 
abbots, preachers and reformers for the whole church of 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 15 

these vast countries, Kwdi principally for the two countries 
oi Austrasia 2lM^ Burgundy; that it owed its influence 
chiefly to the flourishing school established there by Saint 
Columban; that it was 

THE MOST CELEBRATED SCHOOL OF CHRISTENDOM 

during the seventh century, and the most frequented; 
that it was the source of secular as well as sacred learn- 
ing, and that monks and clerks, Franks and Burgundians, 
old and young, crowded to it; that from the banks of lake 
Geneva to the coast of the North Sea, every year saw the 
rise of some monastery peopled and founded b}/ the child- 
ren of Luxien, and that as a great center of Christian vir- 
tues, light and life shone forth from it, brightening all 
around with irresistible energy. 

Observe well that the bishops, abbots, preachers and 
reformers from the.abbey of Sequania, who labored for 
the whole Church of the vast countries under the Frank, 
labored chiefly for the two countries of Austrasia and 
Burgundy. Now it happens that the handful of heroes 
whom Charles Martel led to the Loire to meet the Mo- 
hammedan, were Austrasians, nurtured between the 
Meuse and Rhine; the very men among whom, for gen- 
erations, the monks of Luxien labored most, and most 
effectively — men who were indebted to the influence of 
that monastery, not alone for all the learning they pos- 
sessed, secular and sacred, but for their virtues as well, 
as their fathers were before them. That institution was 
the mould in which the souls of the Austrasians were cast 
and tempered. They were Catholic to the core; they 
were heroes in heart and hand, these graduates of Lux- 
ien, and S23iritual children of St. Columban's sons. 

These were the men that followed Martel to Tours, not 
without chaplains, and who, near the shrine of St. Martin, 
and the home for years of St. Patrick, amid memories that 
were dear to them, though outnumbered ten to one, 
dealt an insolent foe^who deemed himself invincible — 
that tremendous blow which was justly believed to have 
saved Christendom. The fame of the i^ustrasian is as 
deathless as God's Church. Had the Irish St. Columban 



16 LECTUEE BY 

no share in securing it? If the soul be the seat of valor 
and the home of every virtue that nourishes it ; if teach- 
ers of secular and sacred learning have aught of influence 
in the growth and development of head and heart, and in 
the formation of the character of the youths under their 
care; if religion and its ministers can plant in the sor 
the seeds of heavenly virtues, and among them that of 
courage to defend one's faith, which animated by love 
would bloom into heroism when a great occasion presents 
itself — if its gifted chaplains can fire a noble heart on the 
eve of a great struggle for Faith and Fatherland — then, 
the monks of Luxien were on the field of Tours, and Irish 
saints are not without a claim to the honor, and the fruit 
of that day's victory. 

Take away the Abbey of Luxien and its influence on 
France as Montalembert describes it, and the fame of 
Tours fades away from history. Do this and the Moham- 
medan marches on through x\ustrasia and Neustria, and 
whither-soever he lists with even less difficulty than he did 
through Aquatania. Close Ireland's free schools for two 
hundred years; let her monks stay at home during that 
dark period, and then say how would religion fare be- 
tween the Arian, the barbarian and the Mohammedan? 

ENGLISH PERFIDY AND IRISH FAITH. 

We now come to consider Ireland's lov^e of faith as 
manifested in her long and wasting struggle against Pro- 
testantism. When that great rebellion broke out it 
swept victorious over Europe in fifty years. The Apos- 
tacy of Henry the VIII of England, and its cause or occa- 
sion, are too notorious to need comment. The nation that 
he ruled bowed to his stubborn will and followed him in 
his fail. He would have Ireland do the same. His jur- 
isdiction there was confined to the Pale, a small cres- 
cent hardly thirty miles square in area, in the vicinity of 
Dublin. 

A title to royalty, resting on a spurious Bull attributed 

to Pope Adrian, could not be satisfactory to one who 

" had repudiated the authority of Adrian's successor. He 

desired a better one. Cunning agents and false prom- 



BISHOP HENNESSY. IT 

ises secured it. Some Anglo-Irish noblemen and second- 
rate Milesian chieftains, in a great court held in Dublin, 
elected him King of Ireland and sent" to him to England 
the ancient crown. The Chiefs, the Clans, the Lands, 
the Church, were to enjoy as before all their rights, fran- 
chises and privileges. Though all these rights were 
guaranteed by Henry, and were to be made the basis of 
a new code of laws for the government of Ireland, if his 
promises were to be relied on, yet the faithless deceiver 
was at that very time studying out Ireland's resources 
and her geography, with a view to perfect his plans for 
the plunder of her church and the confiscation of her 
property. 

Protestantism and Plunder are close relations in his- 
tory, and nowhere nearer than in the biography of Henry 
and his worthy successors. The chief means relied on by 
Henry to make Ireland obey his will were 

ROBBERY, C0XFISCATI0:N', AI^D THEIR ATTENDANT HORRORS. 

His first step was to appoint heretical Bishops to Irish 
Sees. If the Sees were outside the Pale they were es- 
corted to them by soldiers who were to install and pro- 
tect them. This was a wise precaution. To some of 
those appointed even it did not seem sufficiently secure. 
They thought it more prudent to govern their flocks at a 
respectful distance. 

The next step was to give up Ireland's church to whole- 
sale plunder. That portion of it that lay outside the 
Pale was distributed among adventurers and corporations, 
let them take their portions when and as they could. Be- 
sides colleges, pilgrimages and shrines, there were fifty 
cathedrals and six hundred religious foundations to tempt 
and whet the cupidity of these sacrilegious robbers. It 
took them one hundred years to do their wicked work. 
There was of course desperate resistance at every step, 
and all the bloodshed and misery which such struggles 
imply. Simultaneously with this went on the work of 
confiscation or seizure of the land. This was preceded 
by war, fierce and merciless, often by famine, pestilence 
and all the savage cruelties and treacheries that could in 
2 



18 LECTUEE BY 

any way subserve tlie end in view, and was invariably 
followed hy the most bitter religious persecution, by test- 
oaths, oaths of supremacy, abjuration and conformity, and 
by severe penal enactments. The fear of this persecution 
which was sure to follow defeat, more than that of the 
loss of his lands, made the Irish Catholic ever fight with 
a valor born of desperation, and disposed him to bear any 
hardships rather than submit to such a fate. 

The work of Confiscation, twin-sister of Protestantism, 
went with her hand in hand. In the time of Edward the 
Sixth, son of Henry and Jane Seymour, King's and Queen's 
Counties were wrested from the O'Mores and O'Con- 
nors for having resisted the intrusion of a heretical 
bishop, named Lancaster. This was the first extension 
of the Pale. In the reign of Elizabeth the Earl of Des- 
mond, after a long and bloody war, and a most dreadful 
famine, produced by cutting down with the sword the 
green crops, and driving off the cattle that the hated pa- 
pist might be starved as well as sabred, cost a quarter of 
a million acres of the best lands in Kerry, Cork, Water- 
ford and Limerick, and this for having given hospitality 
to Dr. Leverus, the recusant Bishop of Kildare. 

THIS WAS BUT THE PRETEXT THE LAND AVAS THE OBJECT. 

When it was won it was covered with carcasses and 
ashes. 

In the days of James the First six counties of Ulster, 
containing over a million acres, were taken from the 
O'Neils, the O'Donnells, the O'Dohertys, the McGuires 
and O'Reillys, on the ground that they were intriguing 
with Spain for an invasion of the country. And this land 
was parceled out to Scotch adv^enturers, Presbyterians in 
religion. Charles the First, son and successor of James, 
stood in need of money. His viceroy, Wentworth, set 
about procuring it for him. In the King's name and by 
his authority he promised the Catholics who still held 
property, certain graces for a consideration of one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. One of these gra- 
ces was a confirmation by the crown of all titles that bad 
been undisturbed for sixty years previous. This would 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 19 

have secured to Catholics all their estates in a great part 
of Leinster and throiio-hout Connauo-ht. 

The money was paid; the graces were not given. On 
the contrary, a standing army was raised. A packed 
Parliament introduced a bill entitled "An act to inquire 
into defective titles," and passed it. The inquiry was made 
before judge and jury. The jurors who did not find for 
the crown were fined and imprisoned. The judges re- 
ceived four shillings on the pound of the value of the land 
adjudged to the King. By this process Roscommon, 
Mayo, and Sligo were very soon declared crown lands. 
The King in a fair way, of course^ by act of Parliament 
and legal process, got the people's lands after Went- 
worth had given him their money. For refusing to per- 
jure themselves by finding for the crown, the jurors of 
Galway were fined four hundred pounds each, and the 
sheriff who empanelled them w^as fined one thousand. 
These are some of the ways that the lands changed hands 
in Ireland — and the Scotch and English adventurers, pau- 
pers at home, but thorough Protestants, became estated 
gentlemen and landlords there. 

Before the insurrection of 1641, organized chiefly by 
Rory O'More, the grandfather of the gallant Sarsfield, 
385,000 acres in Leinster, belonging to Lords of the Pale, 
were confiscated because these gentlemen were suspected 
of disloyalty. It is then that Rory said to the possessors 
of his ancestral estates, who feared their loss as a conse- 
quence of the rising, " keep my lands, but help me to 
guard our ancient faith," and the people seeing his en- 
ergy, determination and disinterestedness, cried out 

"our teust is in god and our lady, and rory o'more." 

The Cromwellians got eight million acres as a reward 
for treachery, and butcheries like those of Drogheda and 
Wexford. Attila and Genghis-Kahn were angels of 
mercy compared with Cromwell and his subalterns, Coote, 
Ireton, Jones, Waller, and the rabid dogs of v/ar they 
hounded on so fiercely to tear the flesh of Irish Catholics, 
and then take their property as the fruit of that sport. 

More than a million acres of land were confiscated after 



20 LECTUEE BY 

the fall of Limerick, in 1691, and given to German Pro- 
testants called Palatines. This notorious robbery was in 
open and shameless violation of the famous treaty of 
Limerick. Patrick Sarsfield, sword in hand, surrounded 
by near thirty thousand of the heroes who afterwards 
made themselves an undying name in the service of 
France, maddened at the thought of defeat, and anxious 
to prolong the struggle, dictated carefully in Ireland's in- 
terest the terms of that memorable treaty. Among other 
stipulations he secured pardon and protection for all who 
had fought for James or espoused his cause, and the full- 
est freedom for Catholics in the practice of their religion; 
religious liberty for Catholics and full amnesty for the 
past were carefully secured by a studied phraseology in 
that instrument which the hero of Limerick left his peo- 
ple to shield them when he was gone. 

THE SUREENDER OP LIMERICK 

was joyful news to William, and the General who secured 
it was" well rewarded. The treaty was welcome, too; it 
closed a bitter war; brought a needed peace, and would 
save men and money that would be found useful else- 
where. Before the city was delivered a French fleet for 
the Jacobite cause, anchored in the Shannon. The 
fight might have been renewed and the enemy defeated, 
but the treaty was made. 

Irish faith was pledged to it, and the custody of Irish 
honor was preferable to any victory. The honor of the 
English nation. King, Queen, Parliament and people, was 
pledged also to the faithful execution of every article and 
clause of it; yet no sooner were Sarsfield and his brave 
followers gone than it was disregarded. As soon as it 
was safe to do so it was broken. Four thousand Catholic 
gentlemen, for whom with the rest pardon and protection 
had been secured, were proscribed, and more than a mill- 
ion acres of their land given to the Palatines, of whom I 
have already spoken. Perfidy and perjury did not stop 
here. Savage hate was not yet sated. The Irish Parlia- 
ment, which by the terms of the treaty was bound to rati- 
fy the articles and increase Catholic privileges, did the 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 21 

very contrary, by mutilating and changing the one and 
manufacturing new oaths of abjuration as a substitute for 
the other. Parliament after Parliament continued this 
system of perfidy till in the first year of the reign of Anne, 
1703, a bill was introduced entitled "An Act to pre- 
vent the further growth of Popery," and notwithstanding 
the powerful remonstrance of Sir Toby Butler against it, 
his appeals to Royal and National honor and to the sanc- 
tity of treaties, held sacred always and everywhere, and 
respected even by savages, it passed. An act to prevent 
the further growth of Popery, bristling with disabilities, 
was English law for Irish Catholics twelve years af- 
ter the treaty of Limerick. How well does the history 
of that contract illustrate the character of the two peoples! 
It is at once a witness to the highest honor and the basest 
perfidy. 

Pause here at the surrender of this old city. The year 
is 1691 — more than a hundred years before O'Connell's 
admission to the bar, and more than eighty before the 
Declaration of American Independence. The sword that 
guarded the rights and faith of the Irish Church for a 
century and a half, is thrust into its scabbard by Patrick 
Sarsfield, and fighting for the faith ends at Limerick. 
Catholic Barristers as well as Catholic Soldiers will soon 
be gone, till O'Connell's day, and the voice of Sir Tobey 
Butler, one of the signers of the treaty, will be among 
the last to plead passionately for the rights of his fellow 
Catholics, or protest vehemently and indignantly against 
any further oppression of them. 

But pleadings and protests for a prostrate people never 
received the attention of England. 

INIQUITOUS LEGISLATION CONTINUED. 

What is known as the Penal Code, was of slow growth; 
it was the aggregate of enactments made during several 
reigns, running through many generations. While Ire- 
land had a sword it could be but partially and locally en- 
forced; but now, that the Catholics were without land, 
without a sword, without even a tribune to give voice to 
their woes, it began to assume all the fearful proportions 



22 LECTURE BY 

of its horrid character, or as Burke phrases it, to acquire 
that vicious perfection so admirably adapted to impoverish, 
degrade, and to even brutify, and there was no impedi- 
ment to its thorough enforcement. Through its debar- 
ing influence, in its most perfect form, three helpless gen- 
erations w^ill have to pass. It will proscribe bishop, priest 
and teacher, and leave the catholics destitute of all rights 
whatever. To be a bishop or a priest in Ireland was a 
crime in the eyes of the law, punishable by transportation 
for life. To return was treason, the penalty for which was 
hanging, disemboweling while yet alive, and quartering, 
these quarters to be publicly exhibited for the edification 
of all who may aspire to the ministry by which popery 
was to be preserved. 

So numerous were the disabilities, and so inveterate 
the prejudices against the Catholics, that they not only 
were without rights, civil, political, or religious, but their 
children could not even learn a trade. Huguenots would 
not have them as apprentices. The spirit of hate went so 
far that complaint was lodged before the authorities in 
Dublin against two of them ; one for being a drayman, and 
the other a hack-driver. They would not have the right 
to live — they would be utterly destroyed if their oppress- 
ors did not need their services. 

They were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. 
They were as helpless as women and children, and Swift 
says that in his day you could tell a Catholic at a glance 
by his forlorn appearance and his marked servility. 

They were made poor by law, for their property was 
confiscated and could not be regained — they were made 
helpless by laio^ for they could neither acquire any rights 
or hold any office — they were made ignorant by law, for 
their teachers, secular and religious, were proscribed and 
hunted. And yet poor and weak and ignorant, they will 
have to preserve that faith that comes by hearing, is de- 
veloped by teaching, and nourished by the grace of the 
sacraments during that black night of eighty years that 
fell on Erin with the fall of Limerick, and do that in spite 
of that terrible code that had for the execution of its work 
a vicious perfection. 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 23 

All this is but rooting out an old religion. A new one 
is to be planted. Protestantism must be rooted in the 
soil out of which Catholicity has been so violently and so 
cruelly torn. 

THIS IS THE SYSTEM OF PLAXTIXG IT 

that w^as adopted in Ulster. The land was divided into 
parishes — some containing two thousand (2,000) acres, 
some fifteen hundred (1,500) acres, and the rest one 
thousand (1,000) acres. The minister presiding over 
each parish received 120, 90 or 60 acres, according to its 
extent — that is, six per cent, of the land was glebe. Be- 
sides these lands, he received the tithes, accompanied by 
the obligation of providing schools for the children. I need 
not say that the schools were to be denominational; they 
were to preserve the spirit of John Knox, and, perchance, 
to improve it, as the religion was one of progress. Pres- 
byterians and Puritans, tluguenots and Palatines, Brown - 
ists, Methodists, Independents, etc., etc., were planted 
well in the confiscated lands of Catholics. This was good 
Protestant seed; it was the best that could be found any- 
where; it was sought far and near; it was carefully 
chosen; it was imported from Germany and France, 
England and Scotland. 

The Palatine, the Huguenot, the Presbyterian and 
Puritan were the best article of the kind these countries 
could produce. It would, indeed, be difficult to improve 
on them. Among these were the men who under pressure 
of conscience entered into a solemn league and covenant 
to never cease till they would extirpate Popery in Ireland, 
and theirs were the preachers who, with the whites of 
their eyes towards heaven, fanatically invoked its blight- 
ing curse on the head of the man who would not, in this 
war of extermination, make his sword drunk with Irish 
blood. To help the plantation of Protestantism in the 
land, there were colleges like Trinity, which was itself the 
offspring of confiscation, to educate ministers, to turn out 
learned ^Dreachers like Usher and Ware, who would prove 
to Catholics, if they had brains to understand the proof, 
that the faith of their fathers was Episcopalian ism, that 



24: LECTUKE BY 

the churcli of St. Patrick was tlie same as that of Henry, 
and translate for them the Bible, the new rule of faith, 
from the original Hebrew into the Irish language. 

The best invention of all was a system of schools to 
proselyte the children. 

THERE WERE SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND FOR HOSTAGES, 

children of Irish chieftains, to make them anti-Catho- 
lic and anti-Irish. An O'Neil and a Desmond passed 
through them. 

There were Schools of Wards to take charge of Catho- 
lic orphans, heirs to property, and of the estates com- 
ing to them ; they were perverted. The females among 
them given in marriage to poor adventurers who had in 
some signal way shown their zeal for religion. There 
were Charter Schools; Blue Coat Schools; Hibernian 
Schools; Hibernian Marine Schools; schools for all classes 
of children. All were richly endowed in land and money, 
and supported out of the treasury whenever it became 
necessary to do so. These schools were for Catholic chil- 
dren exclusively, and no other schools for them were toler- 
ated. Parliament knew their value; it was interested in 
their success. To promote their efficiency it passed an 
act incorporating a society, whose duty it would be to 
superintend and inspect these schools, and see to it that 
they did their work thoroughly; that is, proselyte Catho- 
lic children. This, says Dr. Boulter, who procured the 
Act of Incorporation, is one of the best methods we can 
think of to convert, if possible, the young generation. It 
surely was all that he claimed for it, and the wonder of 
wonders is how it could fail to succeed. 

Picture to yourself the contest between the two relig- 
ions. On the side of Protestantism are the Crown, the 
two Parliaments of Ireland and England, the army, the 
navy, the bench, the jury, the powerful corporations, all 
the offices, the landed interests, the universities, the 
preachers, the proselyting school system, England and 
Scotland, and, behind all, the treasury of the nations. 
On the side of Catholicity, you see absolutely nothing but 
a species of social Lazarus, writhing in agony, and, ap- 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 25 

parently, expiring under the terrible torture of that Penal 
Code. The Protestants have all the forces you can name, 
while the Catholics are without any; they have been made 
poor and ignorant by law, abject by oppression; without 
land, without money, without rights of any kind, with- 
out office, not only without a sword since Sarsfield's was 
sheathed, or the voice of a tribune since Butler went to 
his rest, but, worst of all, without a priest to baptize them, 
or any one to teach them their prayers or a chapter of 
the catechism, as far, at least, as law could effect it. 

It is not easy to see how these poor people, fallen and 
trodden down, could have preserved their faith genera- 
tion after generation for eighty years, when all its de- 
fenses were gone, and everything that could nourish or 
produce it was outlawed. It would seem utterly incredi- 
ble that they could have done so, if the fact were not be- 
fore us. You will ask me, 

HOW UNDER HEAVEN DID THEY SUCCEED IN HOLDING IT? 

I shall try to tell you. Their faith was precious, and 
their fidelity was famous; their faith to them was the 
equivalent of heaven's happiness; it was the pledge of a 
royalty and freedom that none could take away; whereas, 
its loss would entail a misery and a slavery such as Eng- 
land and her code, had they been ten thousand times 
more cruel, covdd never have inflicted. These truths had 
been burned into the nation's heart by the teaching of 
St. Patrick, and the long years that had since elapsed 
served but to deepen the impression. They prized their 
faith then and loved it proportionately, and they had 
from heaven free wills to hold it that no tyranny could 
coerce. Its surrender would be apostacy, that is, infidel- 
ity to Him who made them free indeed, and loyalty, es- 
pecially to God, was the natural offspring of their honest 
hearts, and the glorious heritage of their spotless history. 
Under heaven, after these considerations, the faith was 
saved in Ireland by the aid and influence of the Irish 
abroad. Priests and soldiers, who never for a moment 
lost sight of the terrible struggle in which they, whom, 
they had left behind, were engaged. 



26 LECTURE BY 

The wars in Ireland, and penal enactments, made these 
men exiles. Every war closed with proscrij^tions and 
persecution, as well as with confiscation, and the conse- 
quence of these was a constant 

EXODUS OP PRIESTS AND SOLDIERS. 

Nineteen thousand soldiers left for France after the fall 
of Limerick, commanded by their own officers. They 
were known afterwards as the Irish Brio;ade. In three 
years, from 1G96 to 1699, one thousand priests, secular 
and regular, left Ireland, hunted by the laws that shot up 
fierce and fast, when the soldier was gone, over the ruins 
of the broken contract. The continent of Europe was 
full of these men. They loved their country with intense 
passion; they loved her all the more for her sorrow, and 
their compulsory exile. To help her as best they could, 
to make friends who might some day or other aid them 
in their cherished project, to try to preserve from utter 
extinction the ancient faith which the Arch- Apostate was 
crushing out, seemed to be the sole purpose of the after- 
lives of these exiles far away. 

Let me speak first of 

THE EXILED IRISH SOLDIER. 

Abroad as at home, as a kind Providence would have 
it, his sword was ever drawn in the cause of his religion. 

The Protestant Reformation, as Burke observes, intro- 
duced new interests into European politics. From the 
time of that religious rebellion to the French Revolution, 
its natural consequence, Europe was divided into two 
camps — one Protestant, the other Catholic. On the Prot- 
estant side were England, Holland, Prussia, Sweden ; on 
the Catholic, Spain, Austria and the Italian States. 
France and Bavaria were sometimes swayed by other in- 
terests, from constantly adhering to the cause they should 
have always advanced. It is no wonder, then, to find the 
Irish soldiers in the service of those countries that repre- 
sented the Catholic cause ; the}^ would be out of place 
elsewhere. They fought for Poland under Field Marshal 
Kavanagh, and protested with their blood against its in- 



BISHOP HENNESST. 27 

iquitous partition. It was in Spain and France and Aus- 
tria, tliey served principally. "Writing from Spain to 
Dean Swift, Sir Charles Wogan, himself a general in the 
Spanish service, complainingly says : " These southern 
governments are very slow in advancing foreigners to 
gainful preferments, and they never receive half the 
distinction to which they are entitled. " 

Yet such was the character of the Irish soldier, such 
his innate sterling worth, that with his trusty sword and 
gallant heart, he cut his way to the heights of fame, and 
won even from prejudice the first honors in the gift of 
kings. It would be bad policy not to recognize and re- 
ward his merits. The O'SuUivans of Kerry, the O'Neils, 
O'Donnells, O'Reillys of Ulster, theBlakes and O'Connors 
of Connaught, stood high in Spain in the Army, Navy and 
Civil Service. They were Admirals, Field-mashals, Gen- 
erals, Governors of Islands, Ambassadors, Counsellors of 
State, and were in the first ranks of the nobility as 
grandees of Spain. The Browns of Limerick, the Kava- 
naghs of Carlow, the Nugents of Meath, held similar ex- 
alted positions in the service of Austria. What need I 
speak of the honors they won in France, where in fifty 
years, from the fall of Limerick to the day at Fonteno}^, 
four hundred and fifty thousand of them laid dow^n their 
lives to advance her cause. 

Blenheim, Ramilies, Almanza, Namur, Enghien, as 
well as Landen and Fontenoy, recall memories dear to 
Ireland. Two thoughts were ever present to the mind 
of the Irish soldier abroad: these were the agony of his 
country and the cruelty of her torturer, and these served 
not a little to call out his bravery, especially when he was 
directed against the British ranks. Then the perfidy of 
England came up before him, with all its base concomi- 
tants. Remember Limerick ! was the cry it elicited. 
Remember the broken treaty, the four thousand proscrip- 
tions, the million acres, that ought to be sacred, given to 
the Palatines, and the act to prevent the further growth 
of Popery, that quickly followed. 



28 LECTUEE BY 



REMEMBER LIMERICK ! WAS THE WILD CRY 

of Sarsfield, as he chased the hated foe on the fatal field 
of Lariden ; it was Lord Clare's, as he rushed at him up 
the slopes of Fontenoy. 

To humble haughty England, be it ever so little, to 
weaken her power; to break but one finger of the iron- 
hand that was pressing the life out of Ireland's heart; to 
avenge in some way her cruel wrongs; to preserve the 
manhood of those at home, who were mere hewers of wood 
and drawers of water, and were day by day sinking into 
servility; to perform deeds which the poet-priest would set 
to numbers, and the wandering minstrel would proudly 
sing for them in the fields and at the fire-side, and thus 
keep alive their ambition by feeding it with their own glory 
— "for one in name and one in fame are the sea-divided 
Gael" — to win fame, and honor, and position for Ireland's 
sake — for her use and benefit; to merit the esteem of 
those who could and ought, and some day might, assist 
her — these, and such as these, were the desires that filled 
and fired the Irish soldier's heart, especially if the old 
foe was before him; called out all the grand energies of 
his nature, and gave to hereditary valor that sublime dar- 
ing — that magnificent, irresistible dash, which shed 
around the Irish brigade that halo of glory that has made 
its name the equivalent of all that is gallant on battle's 
bloody field. 

They fought for faith, they fought against its ene- 
mies, they were Crusaders, more than those who, putting 
a red cross on their breast, went out to Palestine at the 
bidding of St. Bernard. 

If Ireland was to have priests they must be educated 
abroad. The soldier felt this, and as he gave his sword 
to the Church he lov^d, he gave of his pay, also, to secure 
burses for her children. The exiled bishops felt it espe- 
cially, and with the aid of Kings and Princes and Popes 
they established Irish colleges all over Europe. There 
were three such colleges connected with the great Uni- 
versity of Lou vain e. 

In these were congregated very many of the exiled 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 29 

priests; they were places of refuge for new arrivals. In 
them gifted pens and loving hearts left those famous 
Irish manuscripts which are found scattered to-day- 
through the great libraries of Europe, and without which 
Ireland's history could not now be written. The annals 
of the four Masters were written in Louvaine in the Irish 
college of St. Anthony. 

What brilliant names, and ripe scholarship, and sublime 
patriotism these old colleges recall! What grand pupils 
they sent forth; out of them came such men as Luke 
Wadding, Oliver Plunket, Dominic O'Daly, Dr. Doyle, 
and hosts of others. As Oliver Plunket, Primate of Ire- 
land, who, on account of his religion and his position, for 
there was no other cause, was hanged, quartered and em- 
boweled alive on Tyburn Green, who on hearing his cruel, 
causeless sentence, exclaimed, "thanks be to God," and 
to the heartless judge who pronounced it, for a very small 
favor granted him, said, " may God bless your Lordship." 
One of these had endowments amounting to seventy 
thousand (70,000) florins, equal to a million dollars to- 
day, the pious, generous donations of the Irish abroad. 
Priests, merchants, soldiers — they who had consecrated 
life to the cause that was dear to them — thought but little 
of the gift of money. There was an Irish college in Ant- 
werp. Irish colleges vrere all over France, in Paris, 
Rouen, Bordeaux, as well as in Douay and St. Omers. 
Alcala, Seville, Salamanca, in Spain, had Irish colleges. 
So had Lisbon and Coimbra, in Portugal. There were 
two in Rome, the Irish house and St. Isidor's. They 
were not alone seminaries for Ireland's priests. They 
were points of re-union for the scattered race, centers of 
organization and of concert of action. They were the 
senate houses of the two divisions of the grand army 
abroad. Here priest and soldier met to take thought to- 
gether in regard to the next step in behalf of Ireland's 
faith. 

Luke Wadding, the famous Franciscan, the great patriot, 
the virtual founder of the two Irish Houses in Rome, whom 
Innocent, 10th, on account of his learning and virtues, 
deemed worthy of the highest honor in his gift, the hat of a 



30 LECTURE BY 

Cardinal. Dominic O'Daly, who, amid many other great 
honors, was at the time of his death Bishop-elect of Coim- 
bra, the primatial See of Portugal. Dr. Doyle, the illustri- 
ous Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, the first name in learn- 
ing, eloquence and patriotism among Ireland's prelates in 
this century. These w^ere men of gigantic stature, intel- 
lectually and morally. They would be great men in any 
age of the Church, in any country. Any nation might 
well be proud of them. They were poor Ireland's glory. 
In their noon of fame they fondly called her mother and 
honored her as such. In her deepest degradation she 
lifted her head and pointed to them as her devoted chil- 
dren. They were her staff in the hour of her need, a 
light to her feet in the midnight of her ignorance; she 
can never forget them. 

Deep down in her heart of hearts she cherishes their 
fondly precious memories. Cardinals in Rome, Primates 
in Portugal, counsellors and royal chaplains in Spain and 
elsewhere ; the Irish priests, like the Irish soldiers, rose to 
the first ranks in their profession, and notwithstanding 
the prejudice that always and everywhere exists, more 
or less, against foreigners, yet so eminent was their merit 
that there was no honor in the gift of Pope or King or 
nation of which they were not deemed worthy. In the 
lecture hall, amid a thousand inspiring recollections, with 
what genuine eloquence did they labor to fill w4th their 
own zeal and fire with their own spirit the young clerics 
they were educating, who as priests would to-morrow or 
the next day be smuggled into Ireland, sure to meet 
there misery, and perhaps martyrdom. In the pulpit, 
with Irish soldiers before them, blazing with the deco- 
rations they had won on many a famous field, and the 
native nobility around them, whose pity or indignation 
might be worth something to the cause they loved, these 
Irish preachers and professors, amid scenes like this, told 
again and again Ireland's story, with a power and a pathos 
that made strangers weep. 

In their national celebrations, such as that of St. Pat- 
rick's Day, which were religiously kept, and which were 
ever honored, as they are still in Rome and Paris, by the 



BISHOP IIENNESSY. 31 

presence of cardinals, bishops, the higher clergy and all 
ranks of the nobility, Ireland's cause was still the theme. 
With pen and tongue, in public and in private, at court 
and in the college, they were ever recommending it. 
Time and again, they persuaded the kings of France and 
Spain, and the sovereign Pontiffs to contribute men and 
money, and fit out expeditions to uphold it — expeditions 
w^iich they themselves invariably accompanied. By their 
eloquence and their writings and their personal influ- 
ence, which was always great — for they were esteemed 
wherever they were known — they made friends for Ire- 
land, won sympathy for her, and created a public opinion 
in her favor so strong that England's representatives 
encountered it in the Catholic Courts of Europe, and 
complained of it bitterly. They wrote prayer-books and 
catechisms for Ireland's use which they had printed in 
their colleges. Smugglers from the Channel Islands ran 
into Ireland's bays with priests and vestments, chalices, 
mass-books and catechisms, and shot back again as speed- 
ily as possible with cargoes of young recruits, candidates 
for fame in the service of benefactors. 

These were the men — these Irish abroad — priests and 
soldiers, who, in the providence of God, saved Ireland 
from heresy and her people from the condition of the 
savage, and preserved their faith pure and strong during 
that black night of bondage, of more than eighty years 
duration — from the fall of Limerick to that ever memor- 
able day when Burgoyne surrendered, and the news from 
Saratoga took a leaf from the penal code and loosed for 
ever the binding of that execrable volume. 

With a mission similar to that of these men — would 
we had their spirit to fulfill it. Heirs of their fame, proud 
of their career, let us keep before our eyes the bright 
example they set us. They saved their brothers' souls 
and counted not the cost ; let us at least nourish their 
bodies. We should do more. 

If our relations to Ireland differ not from theirs, neither 
do our duties. If any nation on earth deserves our grati- 
tude and the best services we can render, consistent with 
our duties here, that nation is Ireland. If any people on 



32 ' LECTIJKE BY 

earth should aid her in a just cause, we are they pre- 
eminently; for it is to her invincible a.ttachment to truth 
we owe our faith and all that it implies. She might have 
left us a different legacy, and the wonder is that she did 
not. It is no exaggeration to say in the light of history 
that she is probably the only nation in God's church that 
would have passed faithfully through the terrible trial to 
which she was put. 

We have better opportunities and greater facilities of 
aiding her than our brethren of the eighteenth century 
had. We live in a land baptized into freedom, under a 
government where 

FREEDOM FOR ALL IS THE PEOPLE's FAITH, 

and where any other teaching would be deemed heretical, 
we are millions; we are proprietors; we are citizens hav- 
ing rights as well as duties; we are not foreigners; we 
are'at home here; we are of the people; we have grown 
into them by birth and marriage; we breathe their spirit; 
we stand by them in the day of sacrifice; our common 
devotion to this government has been annealed in blood. 
Let the pen of malice write as it will, we are part and 
parcel of the great republic, loyal to it even unto death. 
We have here the ear of freemen; we can tell them 
Ireland's story, which they know yet but very imperfect- 
ly; we can make known to them her wrongs, her suifer- 
ings in the cause of liberty; we can contradict falsehood; 
we can counteract the influence of bribery; w^e can 
scourge calumny; we can prevent the free press of a free 
people from espousing the cause of despotism, or being- 
made its hirelings; we can make friends for Ireland; we 
can make converts to her cause; we can create and direct 
public opinion in her favor and nourish it into strength, 
till it speaks with a voice that must be respected; we can 
make the enemies of freedom unpopular here by the 
mere exposure of their wicked schemes; we can assert 
Ireland's rights, and help her in many ways to win them 
back without injury to any one, and with much honor to 
ourselves. Young generations of Ireland's grandchildren 
are growing up in millions around us; w^e can bring them 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 33 

up in the love of liberty, impart to them our spirit, and 
make them proud of their forefathers; we can leave them 
our traditions as a most precious legacy to be carefully 
preserved and faithfully transmitted. In acting thus we 
trench on no right and violate no principle. 

If we do not these things, and more than these, we are 
ungrateful and degenerate, and the Irish abroad of the 
eighteenth century, bishops, priests and soldiers, whom 
we so much admire and to whom we look with pride, 
would, were they here, stigmatize our recreancy and in- 
dignantly disown us. 

Hitherto we have not deserved this censure, and judg- 
ing from the movement now going on amongst us, and 
the spirit that pervades it, and the confidence with which 
Ireland looks to us, and the thanks and blessings she is 
daily sending us, it is not likely that we will deserve it 
soon. 

Packed Parliaments and the confiscation of the lands 
gave birth and vigor to penal enactments in Ireland — 
these preceded and produced the total loss of liberty. 
The recovery of these lands by her people, and a parlia- 
ment in which they will be fully represented, are indis- 
pensable to her complete emancipation. Till she has 
these she will not and ought not to be satisfied, for free- 
dom will not be secure. Till she has the sources of lib- 
erty and whatever is required to protect them, agitation 
will and ought to continue. 

Let me very briefly direct your attention to one more 
point in Ireland's religious history. 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THIS COUNTRY 

is in a very prosperous condition. Its growth in the last 
two generations is unprecedented. Take away from this 
Church for the last fifty years the sons and daughters of 
Ireland, and their descendants, their constant and gener- 
ous contributions, the influence of their sturdy faith and 
rare virtues, and what would be left to us? What would 
become of our grand cathedrals, colleges, convents, great 
parochial churches and their congregations? It would be 
easy to make our directory, to number our Bishops and 
3 



34: LECTURE BY 

institutions, and estimate the wealth of the Catholic 
Church in the country. Go back forty years and draw a 
line around Chicago. Drive outside it all the Catholics of 
Irish birth or descent then in the city. Destroy old St. 
Patrick's, and St. Mary's, and all the monuments of their 
faith and zeal till not a trace remains. Forbid the chil- 
dren of that race to ever after pass that line. Shut them 
out completely. Keep them out, every one. Let no in- 
fluence of theirs, material or spiritual, have aught to do 
with the growth and character of your city since, and 
then let me ask you what would the Catholic Church in 
Chicago be to-day? 

It is quite probable, no such institution worth speak- 
ing of would be within its limits. Chicago, as regards 
Catholicity, might be a blank, or very nearly so, destitute 
as well of German, Bohemian, French, as of English- 
speaking catholics. What may be said of Chicago may 
be said also of other cities, and of states, teo — of Illinois, 
of Iowa. The conclusion to which these reflections tend 
is this : The Church in the TJnited States is in great 
part at least the work of Catholic Ireland. Take away 
her services, remove her hand, and the beautiful structure 
on which we look with pleasure crumbles or disappears. 

I know that catholics of other nationalities have settled 
here, labored here, and made great progress, especially 
the Germans ; but I may be allowed to doubt if, in the 
supposition I have made, they could have stood their 
ground and kept their faith against all the opposing in- 
fluences in a nation of forty or fifty millions. Suppose 
they did succeed — which is not possible — then their 
church would be a foreign element, devoid of influence 
on the nation. I know missionaries of other countries, 
natives and foreigners, have labored here with great zeal, 
ability and success. I could name many such. Some of 
them the most remarkable missionaries of this genera- 
tion in any country ; but I would confidently ask these 
what they, with all their zeal and all their talent, could 
have achieved here for the church without the Irish 
element and its influences. Is it not that element that 
brought most of them out to do missionary duty; stood 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 35 

around them in faith and love; made them zealous and 
eloquent, and gave effect to their preaching- by being 
present at it and practising it? What progress has the 
church made, in the Southern States for instance, where 
Irish immigration was only a rivulet ? The smaller that 
stream is in any part of the country, the more puny and 
unprogressive is the church. 

What can be said of the United States may be said also 
of Canada West, Australia, Scotland, and even of England. 
There are not to-day within the fold of Christ more zeal- 
ous, hard-working Bishops and priests, or more devout and 
edifying people than are to be found in these countries. 
The churches in them are full of life and vigor and bud- 
ding promise. They are oar pride to-day and our hope 
for the morrow. Ireland can claim all these as her chil- 
dren or her converts. She can claim that portion of the 
Catholic Church wherever found that uses the English 
language, and make good her title to a share in its fame 
and services. 

THAT ENGLISH LA:N^GUAGE IS A MIGHTY PC WEE. 

England's unbounded empire, her commercial enter- 
prise, the intellectual vigor and activity of her people, the 
immense wealth that works her printing-presses, might 
alone suffice to have made it such. Three hundred years 
ago that great language became the messenger of heresy 
and the maligner of Catholicity. Proud and powerful 
England in the zenith of her fame as an apostate nation, 
and in the fury of her fanaticism might be supposed to 
have said, "Behold my language, how grand its destiny 
and glorious its mission. My merchants, my soldiers, my 
sailors, my colonists, my missionaries, my tourists will 
carry it to the ends of the earth, and with it my religion, 
the religion of intellectual freedom, of emancipated hu- 
manity, which is evermore indissolubly united to it; I will 
plant it everj'where and water it in the interest of human 
liberty and progress. 

" My literature, my history, my works on science, my 
theologies, every print issuing from my press shall ex- 
pose the hideousness of Popery, and make it abhorred 



36 LECTURE BY 

everywliere as it is here at home. My language will be 
spoken not only in my colonies, in Asia, Australia, and 
America, but throughout Europe. The interests of trade 
and the requirements of travel will give it currency in 
Paris, in Rome, in Madrid, and Vienna. The young na- 
tions that will have made it their own will add to its 
vigor — they will help to diffuse it. Sustained and im- 
pelled by all these forces and the interests they beget, 
and the influences they embody, it will and must ad- 
vance from conquest to conquest, from one point to an- 
other, till in its victorious and irresistible course it shall 
not in time leave the Papacy a foot of undisputed terri- 
tory even in Italy. In that happy day oaths of suprem- 
acy and abjuration will be required no longer. The Eng- 
lish language and its religion. Protestantism, will have 
peaceable possession everywhere." 

This bold prophecy did not seem rash — it has been 
partly verified, and to all appearances it might have been 
fulfilled to the letter, had not God's word been pledged 
to the contrary. He promised that the gates of hell, and 
consequently England's power, should not prevail against 
His Church. But how shall His promise be verified? 
How will His word be made good? How will the influ- 
ence of that language for error and against truth be 
checked or counteracted? Who will contradict in the 
English languao;e the falsehoods and calumnies uttered 
and published in that language for the benefit of those 
who understand no other? 

Who will propose the truth to English audiences and 
write it for English readers, and who will chastise Eng- 
land's misrepresentations and calumnies with her own 
weapon? Who will break up the unholy alliance of a 
great language with foul heresy, pronounce their union 
invalid and dissolve it? Not France, nor Spain, nor 
Italy. They cannot. England or Scotland will not. 
What visible means are there on earth to make God's 
promise to his church good? Who shall rise up and serve 
Him against the powers of darkness? In His chu^-ch 
there is but one nation whose language is English, but 
one nation that can champion truth and combat error in 



BISHOP HENNESSY. 37 

it, and that nation is Ireland. But what can she do 
against England? England is rich, and powerful, and 
learned. She has colleges, and universities, and printing 
presses. She has legislatures and armies, and the empire 
of half the earth. 

IRELAND IS BUT A WRETCHED PROVINCE OF HERS, 

under her iron heel — weak, broken, poor, illiterate- 
Against England she would be Lazarus against Dives — 
David with his sling going to meet Goliath — as a fisher- 
man against the Caesars. Grant it; these are encouraging, 
prophetic comparisons. Ireland is the very Nazareth of 
the promised land. Can any good come out of it? She 
is poor, weak, illiterate. Be it so. So were the Apostles. 
These reproaches are but so many reasons why God should 
choose her for a great work, why He should call her out 
to redeem His promise. It has entered into the Divine 
plan of redemption to show strength in infirmity, to 
choose the weak in order to confound the strong. The 
weaker the force employed the more Divine becomes the 
victory. Ireland is poor, weak, illiterate; yes, but she is 
honest, she is true, she is grateful, she is faithful, she 
has moreover a will that no tyranny can bend; an attach- 
ment to truth, to God, that no sword can destroy and no 
bribe can sever. Neither in her regenerated nature nor in 
her Catholic history, is there to be found any element of 
apostacy. She has the patience that can bear all things. 
She has graduated with distinguished honors in the 
first university of sufi'ering this world has ever seen — 
that which England built for her and over which she so 
ably presided. She is chaste, she is fruitful; where her 
children fall, there they are multiplied. Obedient as 
Abraham, and ready for any sacrifice, she has inherited his 
blessing. These are the qualities that God regarded when 
He called her, and left Himself no choice besides her. 
She obeyed the call, made no complaint or remonstrance, 
relied on Him who gave it. She undertook to break 
down England's monopoly of the English language in the 
service of error. She exorcised that language, emanci- 
pated it in part, wedded it to faith, divided its service 
with error, and made it a messenger of truth as well. 



38 LEOTCJKE BY 

Now glance at her career from the day of her conver- 
sion to the present time. 

SHE EECEIYED THE FAITH AS NO I^ATION EVER DID, 

quickly, generously, as became a noble people, without 
shedding one drop of the blood of those who brought it 
to her. For 300 years she consecrated to its service her 
wealth of intelligence and love and her other possessions, 
so abundantly that she gave it an expression in her fam- 
ous free schools and monasteries such as it received no- 
where else. She became the seminary of Europe ; the 
garden of God's church, the nursery of Apostolic men, 
the Island of Saints and Scholars. 

During this time she sentout her missionaries, Bishops, 
Priests, Monks, Scholars. She threw out her lines along 
the Rhine and Danube. She massed her forces where 
they were most needed — in the wildest districts, where 
they would the more readily encounter the barbarian, to 
shear him of that savageness that threatened destruction 
to the Church, as well as to the Empire. 

Of the services then of her own children alone and 
their exalted virtues, three hundred patron saints are the 
testimony of the barbarian and the enduring monument. 

Her son, St. Columban, and his companions, founded a 
monastery in Luxien, which changed the face of France 
and formed the souls of that warrior band, that felled 
Mohammedanism on the field of Tours. The victory of 
that day and the eloquence of Montalembert have made 
famous forever that monk and his monastery. For two 
hundred years and more of bloody struggle against the 
fierce Scandinavians, her children fought for Faith as 
well as for Fatherland, and at length saved themselves 
from that horrid Danish Paganism by their memorable 
victory on the plains of Clontarf. 

For 400 years she fought almost incessantly the Anglo- 
Norman invader, and in spite of his bravery, cupidity, 
and the support of England, she held her lands, except 
the Pale, and even there she collected tribute. She held 
her laws, her language, and her usages, and by doing so 
preserved her grand old Qeltic character, which by its 



BISHOP HENNESST. 39 

sincerity and fidelity, made her proof against Protestant- 
ism. She gave it a Divine mission on the lips of her 
children. She saw the ruin the English language was 
making in God's church. She saw it with sword and 
bible advance from conquest to conquest, sweeping over 
the earth like Mohammed. Ireland's children went out 
with the English-speaking churches, to meet and check 
them, if possible. They went into England and Scotland 
as day laborers, and settled there. They came as steer- 
age passengers, in crowded ships where fever was raging, 
to the United States, and the survivors made homes here. 
They went in convict ships, to Australia, branded as crim- 
inals; their crime in most cases being the same as that of 
Oliver Plunket — a religion worse than any form of Pagan- 
ism. 

Everywhere they built churches, and schools, and col- 
leges, and seminaries; they multiplied priests and sup- 
ported them, regardless of their nationality; they gave 
the most promising of their own children to the service 
of the sanctuary, and thanked God for having accepted 
them; they dotted the lands on which they dwelt with 
seminaries as the Irish exiles of an earlier day did the 
countries of Europe; they made education for the priest- 
hood free as it was on the brighest days of their young 
church, and in the wildest hour of barbaric fury they 
shared their last dollar and last shilling with God's Church, 
no matter how much they needed it or how hard they 
earned it; yea, they often give it entire, and put their 
trust in Providence. For fifty years or more they have 
contended thus in defense of truth in the English lan- 
guage against the arch-apostate of the nations and its co- 
adjutors, and the result of that unequal contest is under 
the world's eye — ^yes, it stands before its astonished gaze 
to-day in Europe, Australia and America. We are yet 
but in the morning of the battle, and behold, the ranks 
of the enemies are breaking, and their leaders are every- 
where deserting the bad cause. The children of Ireland 
have held their ground, they have multiplied, they have 
been re-enforced from the enemy, and the grand army of 
which they were the nucleus — compact, well-organized, 



40 LECTURE BY 

officered — having but one mind and one heart, one par- 
pose, is now evidently moving to new and greater con- 
quests or victories. 

If St. Patrick has any claim to the fame and services of 
the Irish people in the cause of religion for having con- 
verted them; if, after 1400 years the Catholic Irish are 
still called his children, then is Catholic Ireland entitled 
to a share in the glory of every conquest made and to be 
made in the cause of truth by the English language, for 
it was she in latter times converted that language from 
heresy — exercised, emancipated it, sanctified it, made it 
the messenger of truth united to Catholicity, gave it a 
Catholic character and a Catholic organism — that is an 
Irish Catholic body through which it could speak and 
work at a time when no other nation in the Church of 
God could have done so — then, too, should the Catholics 
speaking that language now and in time to come be called 
her spiritual children. 

When that storm came, had she lost her character 
and the possessions which secured it? What could have 
saved her from the elasticity of the Norman, who could 
tear down images for Edward, go to confession with 
Mary, and fall on bended knees to take the oath of su- 
premacy at the feet of Elizabeth? 

During 150 years of famine and pestilence, cruelty and 
treachery, confiscation and plunder, and all the miseries 
of relentless war, she defended the faith, sword in hand, 
against Protestant England; fought for it up and down 
from Kinsale to Derry, and from Derry to Limerick, till 
nothing was left her but that dripping blade, and even 
that she put up in victory. 

For 80 years after the surrender of Limerick, bound 
hand and foot with penal chains as the veriest malefactor, 
she lay as helpless as a culprit pinioned for execution, 
while the priest-hunter sought and the gibbet awaited 
those who would assist her. Even then she was true as 
ever. More true, if possible, to Him she so much resem- 
bled. During a century and a half, until the French revo- 
lution, her gallant brigades fought for Holy Church on 
fields of fame all over Europe against the representatives 



BISHOP nENNESSY. 41 

of heresy, — England, Holland, Prussia, — and whilst they 
were doing so, her Bishops and Priests, poor exiles also, 
were dotting the continent with colleges, and sending 
priests and martyrs to the church at home. 

Look at her career from the beginning to the end of it. 
Examine her record at every period of it in all the countries 
through which she has passed; consider also her new mis- 
sion in the nineteenth century, to which I have a little 
before alluded, her fidelity to it, and the success that has 
crow^ned her labors, and then say whether she is or not 
entitled to the proud distinction I have claimed for her, 
of being the most faithful nation that ever entered the 
Church of God. 

As a memorial of their services in the cause of France, 
Louis the Sixteenth gave the Irish Brigade, before dis- 
banding it, a banner with this inscription: 

1692-1792. 
Sem.2)er et uhiqueJideJis. 

Such a testimony to her services has Ireland merited 
from the King of Kings. 



SOREOWS OF THE OLD LAND. 



LECTURE 

IJJ" BEHALF OF THE POOR OF IRELAND, AND ON THE 
CAUSES OF THEIR POVERTY. 

Delivered in St. John's Church, Chicago, March 17, 1880, 

By the right REVEREND JOHN JOSEPH HOGAN, D. D., 

BISHOP OF ST. JOSEPH, MO. 

I TVAS hungry, and you gave rae to eat; I was thirsty, and you 
gave me to drink; naked, and you clothed me; sick, and you came 
to me. — St. Matthew, xxv, 85. 

I have come a long way to address you on this occa- 
sion, and must confess that before setting- out I hesitated 
much whether to come or not. In the first place, I feared, 
as I do now fear, that I might disappoint you somewhat 
in the matter or manner of my discourse, and for this 
reason I wished that somebody else might have been 
chosen to address you. In the second place, it was not 
easy for me to think of leaving home to celebrate else- 
where the festival of St. Patrick, which my own people, 
wdio are for the most part Irish people, regard as their own 
festival, and claim that I ought to celebrate it with them. 
Now, however, that I have come in answer to your kind 
invitation, and as I know with the good will of my own 
flock, who heartily join you in whatever you do to honor 
St. Patrick, may I not hope, as you honor me so much by 
your presence, that you will also favor me with your kind 
attention and your generous indulgence for whatever I 
may say to you? 

i will remark at the outset that I have noticed to-day 
(42) 



LECTUKE BY BISHOP nOGAN. 4:3 

THE ABSENCE OF MUCH OF THE DISPLAY 

usual on the celebration of St. Patrick's festival. I have 
not seen the long lines of men on parade, wearing 
regalia, and carrying banners of green and gold emblaz- 
oned with cross, and shamrock, and harp, and sunburst; 
the steady tread of the men keeping time to the beat of 
drum and sound of music. For my part, I could wish 
that the festival of St. Patrick, while never wanting any 
solemnity due to its religious character, should also be 
never wanting some public demonstration of joy of a na- 
tionpj character, in order to do just honor to the great 
hero and the great patriot, as well as the great saint, who 
conquered a nation to the cross of Jesus Christ, and im- 
bued that nation with a love of justice, a spirit of liberty, 
and a strength of faith that shall never die so long as the 
knell of time remains unsounded. 

But we cannot be always rejoicing. It is not easy, 
even if it were becoming, to attempt to be joyful and sad 
at the same time. There is a time for everything. And 
the present has more for us than a tinge of sadness. There- 
fore it will be pardoned us if on the present occasion there 
be more tears than smiles. But in truth we have no time 
for tears or smiles. What we have to do is work — work 
of an earnest character. The work before us is to help 
the poor. We will think of what they suffer, and why 
they suff"er, that we may help them the better. We will 
think what charity is, and why we should do charity, in 
order to be the more liberal. Charity is my theme, and 
the wrongs that in this case make charity necessary. 

The Bishop having here explained the duty of Christ- 
ian Charity, and the accountability on the Great Judg- 
ment Day of those who refused to do charity, proceeded 
as follows: What would you have to say for yourselves 
if reminded that you were on one occasion in affluent 
circumstances, that you were possessed of money and 
wealth, that you lived in a country where plenty 
abounded, that you had whereof to eat and drink and 
wear, and be comfortable and enjoy yourselves, and that 
in the midst of that plenty and enjoyment there came to 
you 



4:4: LECTURE BY 

A WAIL ACROSS THE SEA, 

from another land, and that land not a strange land to 
you, where the people, who were your own people, were 
hungry, and cold, and naked; without employment, with- 
out money, without means of support — a million of 
them on the verge of starvation; they called out to you 
for help, they stretched their hands toward you implor- 
ingly, and you did not hear their cry; you closed your 
ears to their appeal; you turned your back upon them 
in the hour of need. Oh, if this be to be said of you, 
how can you hope to escape the terrible penalty which 
x\lmighty God has already, in His justice, pronounced 
against such unmerciful doing? 

You know that, speaking of the poor who are your own 
poor, and in alluding to that country beyond the sea 
which is not a strange country to you, I am directing 
your attention to that which I may call our mother-coun- 
try, which gave most of us birth, and where were born 
many whose descendants are scattered far and wide 
throughout this country and every country under the sun. 
"We are pleased to call that mother-country of ours by a 
name that distinguishes it very appropriately from all 
other countries, — that name is the Emerald Isle. And, 
taking emerald for what it is admitted to be, as the most 
beautiful and pleasing of colors, there is no country so 
beautiful and pleasing to see as Ireland, which is perpet- 
ually clothed in the brightest and most unfading of green. 
Look where you will in that country, in any season of 
the year; along the valleys and meadows; over the hills 
and knolls; up the sloping sides of the mountain, where 
the breezes play, and where the flying clouds overhead 
reflect the moving shadows as things of life; everywhere, 
even to the tops of these mist-covered mountains, is 
spread out before you the thick, velvety surface of moss 
and grass, and shamrocks and daisies. Everywhere, over 
the pointed rocks, the towering clifl"s, the beetling steeps, 
the castellated walls, the tall round towers, the abbey 
ruins, the weird cromlechs, this soft mantle of green is 
spread, covering sharp edges, clothing bare surfaces with 



BISHOP HOGAN. 45 

moss, and. ivy, and wall flowers, over wliicli are spread in 
Nature's wild but beautiful blending berries, of ebon and 
red, and flosses of white, and pink, and blue. From the 
modest daisies and sweet-smelling* primroses, with the 
violets and blue-bells that cluster at your feet, to the 
smiling lilacs that skirt the lawns and fringe the glades, 
how many charming varieties of flower, and shrub, and 
tree, meet the eye and spread their perfumes on the air. 
The holly, the laurel, the yew, the boxwood, the bayleaf, 
the arbutus, the laburnums, with their wealth of flowers; 
the hawthorns of white and pink, that scatter their tiny 
blossoms on the plain; the rich yellow furze, that deco- 
rates the marshes, and bogs, and crags that would be 
otherwise unsightly and bare. And where do the birds 
sing sweeter? Where do the brooks run clearer and 
more limpid? Where are the waters brighter that roll 
against the beach and dance and sparkle in the bays? 
Nowhere, indeed, in the world has Nature lavished her 
charms more profusely. Nowhere, never again can your 
eyes behold on earth a place to love as well. 

But why is it that this country, which is so beautiful, 
and withal so salubrious and fertile, is also so afflicted? 
Why is it that 

THE CKY OF WEONG, AND IjSTJURY, AXD SUFFERINO 

reaches us so constantly from that one country, and in a 
manner exceptional to every other country? I answer, 
first, that in the light of God's Holy Revelation, excep- 
tional blessings and mercies are often attached to excep- 
tional suff'erings. Our blessed Lord has said: "Blessed 
are the poor;" "Blessed are the meek;" "Blessed are 
they who mourn;" " Blessed are they who suffer persecu- 
tion." (St. Matthew, v. 3.) And His apostle tells us 
that " Tribulations work for us above measure exceed- 
ingly an eternal weight of glory." (II Corinthians, iv., 
17.) God's ways are not as our ways. His ways extend 
far beyond our narrow horizon into another life, where, 
if we could fathom His merciful designs, we would see that 
what we call sorrows are, in reality, but the beginning of 
joys. He chose as His own lot in life the way of poverty and 



46 LECTUKE BY 

sorrow, and pain. He was born poor. He had not whereon 
to lay His head. His life may be said to have been noth- 
ing from first to last but suiFering-. In doing the will of 
His Heavenly Father He bore the hard conditions which 
the wicked of this world, who were in wealth and power, 
had imposed upon Him. And, such as liis life was, such 
also was the life of those He specially loved and called to 
be His own. His ever Virgin Mother, whom His heav- 
enly grace had made blessed among women, was the one 
He loved most. And j^et she shares. He allows her to 
share, with Him, His suffering, his poverty. His self-denial, 
the contempt He receives. His cruel treatment from oth- 
ers. She suffered in her feelings what He suffered in the 
body. As He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
infirmity, so she was the Mother of Sorrows, whose soul 
the sword did pierce. 

Such, also was the life of the Apostles and Martyrs whom 
our Lord called to share His sufferings with Him, in 
order to share with them His reward. And if, in the won- 
derful ways of God's love, these sufferings here below of 
Mary and her Divine Son, and His Apostles and Martyrs 
be connected with that higher glory above as their reward, 
to which Jesus was, for His obedience, by His Eternal 
Father exalted, and wherewith Mary and the Apostles 
and Martyrs were for their patience and humility crowned, 
surely, we cannot be wrong in attributing to nations the 
respective meeds due to them for faithful, patient suffer- 
ing. If it be, as indeed it is laid down in God's Word as 
a condition, that we must suffer with Christ here in order 
to be glorified with Him hereafter (Romans viii, 17), 
surely there is no nation that can be the equal of that one 
in heavenly glory which for patience and humility and 
fidelity to Christ here below has not only maintained a 
foremost place among nations, but has stood far above 
the highest ranks. May we not, therefore, fully hope, 
firmly relying upon God's Word, that to Ireland espe- 
cially among the nations, these words have a consoling 
application. " You now, indeed, have sorrow, but I will 
see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy 
no one can take from you. " (St. John, xvi, 22.) Yes, that 



BISHOP HOGAN. 47 

faithful Rachael of ours shall not always weep. God 
above hath heard her cry. " Thus saith the Lord : Let 
thy voice cease from weeping, and thy eyes from tears, 
for there is a reward for thy labor, there is hope for thy 
last end, and thy children shall return to their own bor- 
ders. (Jeremiah, xxxi, 16.) 

No one can say that the sufferings of Ireland can be 
attributed to her people for any want of compliance on 
their part with the Divine command given to all people 
to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow. This 
American nation and every nation under heaven cannot 
but bear honest testimony that the Irish people are 

A HAED-WOEKIXG, INDUSTEIOUS PEOPLE, 

who lay to heart, as much as any people in the world, the 
good ajDOstolic injunction, " If any man will not work 
neither let him eat." (II Thess., ii, 10.) Before I pro- 
ceed to give you some general facts, if any be needed in 
proof of this, let me adduce one or two examples out of 
many that were related to me, or that came under my 
observation during a visit of some months in Ireland last 
summer. I met a gentleman from New York traveling 
in Ireland, who told me, briefly, the following story: "I 
landed in Dublin from Liverpool, and, towards nightfall, 
as I was walking along one of the principal streets, a poor 
man, apparently a mechanic, came up to me and asked 
me very respectfully, but pitifully, for a little money to 
help him to get a supper and lodging that night. He 
told me that he came from the City of Limerick, which 
was more than 100 miles away, where his home was, and 
where he had left his wife and children. Failing to get 
employment in Limerick, and finding his means dwind- 
ling down to the last, he left with his wife and children 
one shilling and sixpence, which was all he had except 
what was barely necessary to pay his fare to Dublin. 
And when he arrived in Dublin he wandered up gmd 
down in search of employment, but could get nothing to 
do. His own sad condition, and the sad condition in 
which he had left his wife and children, to whom he 
could not now return or send any aid, seemed to affect 



48 LECTUEE BY 

him very much. I gave him a little to help him for that 
night, and at the same time took down in my note-book 
the description of where he lived in Limerick. Next day, 
having occasion to go to Limerick, and in order to find 
out whether that man had told me the truth or not, I 
went to the place as he had described it where he lived, 
and, surely enough, I found there his wife and children 
in the distressed circumstances he had told me of. Their 
little stock of provisions was gone. Money they had 
none. Whether they could get credit for one meal of 
victuals was doubtful. Charity was all they could look 
to for help. And the case was worse, for they were con- 
tinually thinking of the poor man who had gone out to 
provide for them, not knowing but he, too, was then in 
need and without home or employment. God help the 
honest, industrious poor of Ireland, of whom there are 
many such there, who would be glad to work for a living 
if they could get it to do! " 

The next case I will cite came under 

MY OWN OBSERVATION. 

I was walking one evening along the seaside at Tra- 
raore, in County AVaterford, when I saw a woman coming 
toward me on the strand, her head bent down. As she 
approached, I noticed that she had a large basket upon her 
head, which was fastened by hay ropes across her fore- 
head and around her shoulders. Her gait was tired-look- 
ing and slow. Her feet were swollen from the cold and 
flattened from walking on the sand and gravel. Her gar- 
ments, which were coarse and worn, were dripping wet 
from the sea and rain. I saluted her respectfully. She 
returned the salute with equal respect, and, though load- 
ed with the basket, made an effort at a courtesy, which 
showed she was no stranger to good manners. In the 
course of conversation I learned the following from her: 

" I live here in Tramore, and am trying to make a liv- 
ing by gathering cockles. I have been out all day on the 
strand gathering these cockles you see in the basket on 
my back, which now I am taking to town to sell if I can. 
My husband is out of employment these five months, and 



BISHOP HOGAN. 49 

cannot get a day's work or wages. He is now away from 
home looking for work, and with very little chance of 
getting it. My little children, of whom I have six to care 
for, are at home with no one to mind them but them- 
selves. It is at home I ought to" be minding them and 
taking care of their clothes, to send them to school. But 
now they have no clothes that are worth caring or mend- 
ing. The little rags they have are not fit to go anywhere. 
And before getting them clothes even, I must get them 
something to eat first. I have been out all day gathering 
these few handfuls of cockles. Other years twice as many 
could be gathered in an hour. And now that I have a 
few after my day's labor, I do not know, when having 
taken them to town, whether I can sell them or not, money 
is so scarce. Father," said she, turning towards me and 
recognizing me as a priest, "I wish you would say a mass 
that our blessed Lord may be pleased to send us more 
cockles and send us better times, that the people may be 
able to buy them. I have been here all my life," she 
continued to say; "I was born here. I will die here. I 
would like to stay here if I could make a living here. 
But I cannot go elsewhere. The rich can go where they 
please in this world at least. But the poor must stay where 
they are, and suffer." 

This good woman went on to town to sell her cockles, 
and I continued my walk. In about an hour, when re- 
turning, where the outskirts of the town extend towards 
the bay, whom should I see but this same woman, her 
basket now empty, her head now erect. As she ap- 
proached her little house, or cabin rather, which stood on 
the hillside just over the bay, out ran several little 
children, barefooted' and bareheaded, with red cheeks 
and white curly hair, their hands stretched out towards 
their mother as they ran to meet her. And oh! think of 
their joy ! think of her joy ! when, as she stooped down 
to embrace them, she took from under her arm a bundle 
of provisions, out of which she took several loaA^es of nice 
white bread, and put these loaves into the hands of her 
little ones, with which they ran before her into the house. 
Thank God, said I, they have a mother — a good, faithful 
4 



50 LECTUEE BY 

mother who will not let them suifer ; a fond, devoted 
mother, who, at the risk of her life, in exposure to wet 
and cold, will work honestly and decently for her chil- 
dren, and save them from even one pang of hunger. And 
what at that moment were my feelings of respect for the 
humble poor and reverence for their sacred homes. I 
had seen Buckingham Palace and St. James' Palace and 
the Towers of Windsor ; I had seen the Queen of Eng- 
land escorted through the grand streets of her great city; 
I had seen Italy's Queen Margaret in her royal gondola, 
amid a fleet of gondolas in the Grand Canal of Venice, 
and received in that gay city at the Palace of St. Mark, 
where 20,000 people greeted her; I had stood before and 
been in the fairy palaces of Versailles and the Luxembourg 
and the Tuilleries, and was introduced there to the Em- 
peror and Empress of the French nation in the days of 
their greatest splendor; yet great as these personages 
were, high in the clouds and bright as the battlements 
and gilded domes of their palaces were, there was a pal- 
ace, in my estimation, more sacred, a dome which, though 
humble, lifted itself higher toward heaven and stood 
nearer to God; it was that lowly cottage by the seaside, 
where a grander than a queen dwelt, where the purest of 
domestic affections abounded, where the highest of vir- 
tues shone, — virtues and affections so often found genu- 
ine and true in the poor whom the rich despise or forget, 
— the poor who are the truest friends and best supports 
of country and creed, and who, by their constant fidelity 
to duty, do honor to religion and to human nature. 

THE IRISH ARE POOR. 

Alas, it is true! Let them, however, but get a fair 
chance to work for their living, and it will be soon seen 
that they can help themselves, and help others also. 
They have already done manfully on every kind of pub- 
lic improvement and private enterprise. They have ta- 
ken a large share in building cities, digging canals, con- 
structing railroads, bridging rivers, tunneling hills, filling 
valleys, delving in the mines, hammering in the work- 
shops, clearing the forests, plowing the lands. When 



BISHOP HOG AN. 51 

they could not get work to do at home, they went to for- 
eign countries to work. They came here to the United 
States. They went to Canada. They have gone to Aus- 
tralia, to New Zealand, to the Cape of Good Hope, to the 
East and West Indies, to Caffraria, to Zululand. In 
former times they established themselves in France and 
Spain, in Belgium and Austria, where their descendants 
are to this day conspicuous in ecclesiastical and social, as 
well as in civil and military life. Even England, the na- 
tion that has persecuted them, they have befriended to 
the extent of countless millions of pounds sterling by the 
labor of their strong shoulders and stout arms. England 
called them lazy and good-for-nothing. In fact, England 
has been always defaming them. And in reply to this 
taunt they went quietly over to England and took pos- 
session of the English workshops, where they have out- 
worked the English themselves. It is a fact that at this 
day the great sinews of labor in London, Liverpool, Bris- 
tol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Glasgow are 
furnished by Irishmen, to say nothing at all of what Ire- 
land has done for the ungrateful sister isle in every one 
of her great naval engagements and her stubborn land 
battles, in which no Irishman ever struck his colors or 
flinched an inch before a foe. Ireland is poor, but 

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF HER POVERTY? 

Oppression is the cause. Oppression makes her poor. 
She is a conquered nation. And her conquerors have not 
now, and never had, for her any sense or feeling of justice 
or humanity. Oppression deprived the Irish people of 
the right to possess and practice their religion, of the 
right to hold property, of the right to hold office, of the 
right to serve on juries, of the right to vote at elections, 
of the right to receive an education, of the right to pro- 
tection of law, of the right to sue or plead in their own 
defense. The only right oppression allowed them for a 
long time was the right to be shot or to be hanged. ^ And 
there was enough of that. It cut down the population of 
Ireland at one time to less than a million people. But, 
thank God, the Irish people grew up again. In fact, the 



52 LECTUEE BY 

Irish as a fresh, young, strong, vigorous, virtuous, stami- 
nal race, will grow up and spread out as fast as any race 
so long as there is a trace of them left. It was bad 
enough to seek to root them out by extermination, but it 
was worse to defame them. Oppression, to justify itself, 
has traduced their character and falsified their history. 
It has been always so with conquering nations. The Pa- 
gan maxim " Vas victis," has written the history of many 
a fallen nation, as Ireland's history has been written by 
England. Oppression confiscated the lands of the Irish 
people, because they would not forswear themselves to 
God and country. How would you like it yourselves 
were a usurper to rise up here amongst you, or an over- 
whelming foreign power invade your country and having 
defeated you in battle, would confiscate your lands and 
property, giving a county to this General, and a county 
to that General, a town or city to another General, and 
that these, having new titles from the usurper, would de- 
clare your titles forfeit ; would tell you that what were 
heretofore your houses and lands were no longer your 
houses and lands, but that they would leave you posses- 
sion of them, provided you would pay them a certain an- 
nual sum per acre, to be fixed by themselves, and further- 
more, that you would say and do politically and religious- 
ly as they would bid you, and that you would be ready at 
all times to do any service they would require of you, 
however menial it may be. You know that oppression 
such as this is enough in a short time to blight the hopes 
of any people. And the wonder is that there are any 
Irish people left alive, or that the few of them who sur- 
vive are not degraded to the level of the Zulus, the Hot- 
tentots, or the Maori es. It was oppression such as this 
that made the ex-Premier of England, the Hon. Mr. 
Gladstone, cry out the other day at a public meeting : 
"I cannot forget the abominable conduct of England 
towards Ireland these many generations." 

There is one abomination I cannot pass by without call- 
ing it to your special attention. That is 



BISHOP HOGAN. 53 

THE LAND SYSTEM OF TENANCY-AT-WILL, 

whereby the tenant-farmer can be ejected at any time 
from his holding by the landlord at his discretion, and 
which compels the tenant-farmer to pay over to the land- 
lord the whole fruit of his labor except so much as is 
barely necessary for him and his family to drag out a 
miserable existence. I do not want to wrong the land- 
lords. I say they are entitled to nothing less than jus- 
tice. But justice says " The laborer is worthy of his 
hire." (St. Luke, x, 17.) The landlords do not labor. 
As a class they do nothing for their country but to cor- 
rupt and demoralize it. They might invest their money, 
as the good people of other countries do, in industries 
that would benefit themselves and give elevating employ- 
ment to the idle. But they do no such thing. They de- 
moralize the people by setting them the bad example of 
idleness and dissipation. They prefer to keep hounds, 
ride fast horses, gamble, bet, drink, and spend their time 
at the club-houses, to say nothing at all of doings of 
theirs of a less reputable character; all of which must be 
paid for by their poor, hard-working tenant-farmers, who, 
for their pay, must be content to live within the mud walls 
and on mud floors of dirty cabins, and with such food as 
rotten potatoes, sour milk, cabbage-leaves, and the bones 
of old cows, too old to sell, or infected with distemper. I 
conscientiously declare, in the name of God, from this 
sacred pulpit, and by virtue of my sacred duty as preacher 
of the Word of God, that, in the interest of justice, relig- 
ion, and humanity, the high lords of the British Empire 
ought to let go some of their wealth in order to raise up 
somewhat the poor of that Empire from starvation and 
degradation. Must it be said, or may it not be otherwise 
than this, that 

THE MAINTEXAlSrCE OF LOEDS NECESSAEILY MEANS THE 
CEEATION OF BEGGAES? 

I have a few words more to say yet on the particular 
injustice under discussion. When the tenant-farmer im- 
proves his land, as he occasionally tries to do, by drain- 



54: LECTUEE BY 

ing, leveling, manuring, and sub-soiling, and by building 
houses, erecting fences, and planting trees on it, the land- 
lord or his agent hears this, and comes to the tenant and 
says to him: "This is very good land you have here, — 
much better than I thought it was, — and you have a bet- 
ter house to live in than you formerly had ; but this land 
is too cheap; I have let it to you too cheap; I must raise 
the rent." And up the rent goes, so that the poor farmer 
has now to pay not only for the value of the land as he 
got it, but also for the value of the improvements he him- 
self made on it. Evidently he wrongs and punishes him- 
self by working, and it would have paid him better to 
have remained idle. Or, suppose a tenant-farmer keeps 
a horse for himself to ride, or that he has something bet- 
ter than a common dirt-cart for his wife and children to 
ride in to mass on Sunday, or that he sends his son to 
school to prepare him for a profession in life; the land- 
lord or his agent hears this, and comes down from the 
"great house" to the poor man's cabin, and says to the 
poor man: "You have a nice horse to ride, and your wife 
and children dress very well; and your son is going to 
become a great scholar; but, you see, your rent is too 
low. I see that I can get a great deal more rent out of 
the land." And up the land goes, to the last penny it is 
able to pay. And now the poor man sees he had better, 
from the beginning, remain in rags, and dirt, and igno- 
rance, since this is what he and his posterity are doomed 
to by the laws of the country they live in. Or, suppose 
election day is coming, that the tenant farmer has a vote, 
and that the landlord, wanting a man elected to office 
who is no friend to the tenant, sends down his agent to 
the tenant with commands to vote for that man, which, if 
the tenant fails to do, or if he vote for another man, and 
that the landlord hears it, out the tenant goes from his 
holding, with full permission to go to the poor-house, or 
to Zululand, or to Van Dieman's Land, as he chooses. 

NOW THAT SYSTEM HAS TO BE CHANGED; 

it has to be changed in the interest of humanity. Hu- 
manity, religion, and justice denounce it is as a cruel, 



BISHOP HOGAN. 55 

barbarous, tyrannical system. It is a system that means 
the extermination of a people and the depopulation of a 
country. It means that a people have no right to live 
where they were born, and that their native country, 
and the country of their race, is to be given up to wild 
beasts and the fowls of the air. That system is an im- 
possible system. How can the tenant-farmer of Ireland 
pay £3 (that is f 15) an acre per annum for land, while 
land equally as good is free in France, in Belgium, in 
Germany, and in the United States, and while numerous 
railroads and ocean steamships, with tonnage of immense 
capacity, carry the produce of one country into another 
at prices merely nominal? If an acre of land in Ireland, 
as side by side with the acreage of other countries where 
land is free, has any rentable value — that is to say, if it 
be able to do more than pay those who till it for fair 
wages and the fair living that men of the same class get 
in other countries — let that value be assessed, not by the 
landlord, who is no fair judge in his own case, but by 
sworn, impartial, disinterested valuators. And let the 
landlord receive such rent value, giving therefor a title in 
perpetuity to the tenant to secure him in his interest and 
in the improvement he makes. Or, what is better and 
fairer still for both parties, and more for the interests of 
the country, let the landlord sell, or be compelled to sell, 
his interest to the tenant, receiving therefor just payment, 
in time and manner as may be in the power of the tenant 
to do. These are 

THE REMEDIES FOR IKELANd's POVERTY, 

and' until they are applied there will be famine in Ire- 
land. When they shall have been applied pauperism will 
cease in Ireland. When they shall have been applied, 
and not till then, will Ireland, and the world besides, 
begin to forget what England's ex-Premier persistently 
and remorsefully calls " England's abominable conduct 
towards Ireland for many past generations." And is it 
not the interest and duty of America, once herself an 
enslaved country, to sympathize with those who are yet 
enslaved, to aid them in their poverty, to advocate for 



56 LECTUEE BY 

them those measures of justice and reform they need ; 
and, if these measures be denied them, to hold out the 
assurance that the strong-, free hand that smote tyranny 
before will be ready again, if occasion offer, to strike for 
Liberty, and to drag the enslaved out of the mire and 
slough in which they are immersed? 

These are the causes why there is famine in Ireland, 
and why the people of that country are obliged to stretch 
out their hands towards us, and to ask us for God's sake 
to help them. They are there in regiments; in ragged, 
famished, squalid regiments. A million and a half of 
people are absolutely poor, and of these fully three- 
quarters of a million are starving. The poor-houses are 
full, the cabins by the roadside and in the lanes of the 
cities are full, the pathways from house to house are 
straggling full, beggars here and beggars there, crawling 
and tottering along, crying and weeping in the cold and 
rain, crawling into and out of their dirty cabins; their 
bare, long hands, gaunt faces, bare feet, matted and dis- 
heveled hair, patched and putrid garments, presenting a 
revolting appearance. Oh, God of infinite mercy and 
tender compassion ! why is it that so many of Thy own 
chosen poor are so abject ? Hast Thou not become man 
Thyself ? Why dost Thou suffer Thyself in human flesh 
to be so weak, so vile, so abject, so trodden under foot, 
so despised of men? Oh, Jesus, thou art there in the 
poor. Thou lurkest in these rags. Thou art sick in this 
cabin. Thou art hungry, and thirsty, and naked ; and 
Thou askest us, poor as Thou art, to visit thee. Oh, the 
day will come, my brethren, when He will say to you — 
He who is now in these poor — " I was hungry, and you 
gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; 
I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick, and you 
came to me." My dear brethren, I do not ask you to 
go to these poor of Jesus Christ. The journey would be 
too long for you. And it would be too much, perhaps, 
for your tender feelings of mercy and compassion to 
bear. 



BISHOP HOGAN. 57 

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THESE ABODES OP THE POOR? 

Look in. There is no fire on the cheerless hearth. It is 
cold, bitterly cold. Cold the March wind blows there by 
:^he wild seaside. The cold wind screeches through the 
thin roof, through the rent w^all, through the broken door. 
There is no taper to give light in that cabin — no, it 
would reveal too much the misery and despair within. 
But there are little children there. Weak, ragged little 
children, crying for bread. And there is no bread for 
them. There is no one to give them bread. The father 
has just been taken out to the church-yard. His grave 
is newly made there. No one save One above knows 
how he struggled; but his struggles are now over. He 
has left one behind him in that cabin. The mother is 
left. She is lying on a bed of straw. The little babe is 
at her bosom, vainly seeking there the fountain of life; 
but that fountain is dried up; hunger has been gnawing 
at her heart, too, and cold — the cold of death — is fast 
creeping over her limbs; she has naugnt to give but tears, 
and fast they are falling on that little babe and. those lit- 
tle orphan children. But you need not go to help her. 
There are there, good Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, 
the Presentation Nuns, the St. Vincent de Paul's Socie- 
ties, and the devoted clergy. They will go to the bed- 
side of the poor for you, and, in your name, and especially 
in the name of God, will apply your alms for you. There- 
fore, "according to thy ability, be merciful, If thou hast 
much, give abundantly. If thou hast little, take care 
even so to bestow a little willingly. For thus thou stor- 
est up to thyself a good reward for the day of necessity." 
(Tobias, iv., 10.) Your alms will have great efficacy for 
you Avith God. They will do more than treasures of gold 
laid up for you. (Tobias, vii, 8.) They will deliver you 
from all sin, and not let your soul go into darkness. 
(Tobias, iv., 11.) They will insure that God will not let 
you want (Prov., xxviii., 27), and that He wdll repay you 
seven times what you gave Him. (Eccles., xxxv., 12.) 



ENGLAND'S CRIME. 



THE RIGHT KEV. J. LANCASTER SPALDING, D. D., 
BISHOP OF PEORIA, 

lectuved at tlie Cathedral of the Holy Name, in the North Division, 
to an immense audience, his address, as reported, was substantially 
as follows : 

My Dear Friends: The charm there is in the study 
of events which have been consecrated by time, springs 
from a deep and rational instinct in the human heart. It 
is a part of thi3 desire for self-knowledge — this yearning 
to know the past's history; for we cannot thoroughly un- 
derstand what we are unless we know something of the 
course of events which have shaped and molded our char- 
acter. The past is not dead. It never dies. It is ever 
but the fuller present; each present moment in the life 
of a people, in the life of an individual, summing up the 
thousand agencies and causes which through long centu- 
ries have been working to the end that now is. Hence it 
is not idle ceremony to have festal days consecrated to 
the freshening of ancient memories, devoted to the reviv- 
ing of a more thorough knowledge of the history of the 
civilization to which w^e belong, — of the people of which 
we are sprung. And, as the Irish race is one of the most 
ancient of all now living in the midst of Christian and 
civilizing influences, it is proper also that there should be 
a more intense charm for them in the study of their past. 
It is impossible for us to understand what they are to-day 
unless we also know something of their struggles and tri- 
als, of their supreme efl:brts, of their undying hope. I 
doubt whether any one has ever been struck by 

(58) 



LECTURE BY BISHOP SPALDING. 59 



A MOEE PRONOUNCED CONTRAST 

than is offered to the traveler who passes from England 
into Ireland. Here are two islands lying west of the con- 
tinent of Europe, separated from each other by a little 
strip of water some fifty or sixty miles wide, alike in all 
their physical surroundings and constituents, having sim- 
ilar climates, similar soil, the one twice as large as the 
other. Bound together by this close juxtaposition, it 
would seem the very fiat of fate that they should be 
banded together in love or in hatred, in mutual helpful- 
ness or, for each other's woe. The contrast, in spite of 
this similarity of climate, soil and scenery, is so startling 
that it seems at first sight impossible to believe that man, 
and not nature, has wrought it. 

In England, we see evidences of national prosperity 
and freedom, and an enterprising people. Wealth is ac- 
cumulated in superabundance. From the ports of all the 
nations great lines of ships bear the best and most costly 
products of the earth into this mighty emporium of com- 
merce. As you proceed northward from London, you 
behold on every hand, signs of the busiest industrial life, 
which is working up the raw material of the whole earth. 
The heavens are black with the smoke of innumerable 
chimneys, and the great manufacturing centres run into 
one another until all the northern half of the Island looks 
like one huge smelting furnace and factory mill. The 
population seems almost too dense to exist upon so small 
a spot of earth. 

You pass over a little strip of. water, and land in Ire- 
land, and at once you are in a different world. 

EVERYTHING BEARS THE STAMP OF DECAY. 

Everywhere you behold the monuments of tyranny. In 
the very faces of the people you read the story of wrongs 
and oppression. The towns are in ruins. Many of the 
houses are uninhabited. Whole populations have been 
banished from some of the best counties, and the castle 
of the landlord is surrounded by immense cattle-pastures. 
You pass through these crumbling villages and towns, 



60 LECTURE BY 

and you see gray-haired men and women. The young 
are not there. They are scattered over God's wide earth. 
They have sought a refuge throughout the habitable globe. 
They have left the old home. You see no factories, no 
thriving towns springing up, no working of the mines of 
ore that exist in the Island; few railways; no commerce in 
the ports in which the ships of all the nations might cast 
anchor. 

Now, my friends, this contrast is written in the broad 
face of Nature in these two Islands. England is the most 
wealthy part of the earth. Ireland is the poorest. In 
England the greatest centres of manufacture and com- 
merce have been built up. In Ireland those which have 
existed in past centuries have fallen to ruin. In England 
the people have a sturdy independence. In Ireland we 
are struck by the fact that there are two peoples there, — 
the one, the select few, representing the Government and 
the proprietors — and the other, the mass of the popula- 
tion. The nobleman's castle is surrounded by hedges 
and walls that shut it from the view of common men ; and 
around Dublin the people are imprisoned in narrow lanes. 
All the beauty of this choice and gifted part of Nature is 
shut out from them. They are made to feel, at every 
step, that they are alien there — that the island exists for 
others — and the Irish people, and alcove all the Irish 
Catholics, are strangers in their own country. They are 
under a power that holds them absolutely under control. 
They are unarmed. Those who bear arms are the hired 
servants of their enemies, representing aii alien power. 
Their very way of speaking to you shows that their expe- 
rience has proven to them the necessity of caution. 

WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION? 

How are we to account for this contrast? Two causes 
have been assigned, which have been accepted as satis- 
factory by English public opinion, and which have met 
with only contradiction wherever English literature exerts 
its influence. These two causes are the race and their 
faith. Englishmen have said, and spoken it by all the 
voices which give utterance to English thought, that the 



BISHOP SPALDING-. 61 

Irish, by virtue of their race, are inferior to the English, 
are less fitted for liberty, are idle, are thriftless, are un- 
stable, are, in a word, characterized by so many defects 
that these shortcomings of character at once explain their 
wretchedness and show that it is without a remedy. And 
they say, added to this defect, which is inherent in the 
Celtic character, there is a degrading power which has a 
strong and inveterate hold upon the people, which is the 
Catholic faith. This is a bold and a strong charge. If it 
is true, it explains many things. If it is false, it has but 
added boundless insult to wrongs that are unspeakable, 
and to sorrows that can never be told. 

The Bishop then answered the question: Is the Celtic 
character one which is incompatible with liberty, with 
progress, with industry, with economy — with all those 
qualities which make men successful, and which make 
them respectable? 

THE QUESTION OE EACE, 

as applied to European populations, is never a simple one. 
We hear people talk of the qualities of the Anglo-Saxon, 
but as a matter-of-fact there is no Anglo-Saxon. The 
English are not Anglo-Saxon. Before the Anglo-Saxon 
came to England there was its Celtic population, which 
was not annihilated, but which remained there and con- 
tributed a great part of its blood to the Anglo-Saxon in- 
vaders. England again was invaded by the Danes, inva- 
ded by the Normans. The mingling of many bloods has 
gone to form the English character. In the same way 
that the Englishman is not an Anglo-Saxon the Irishman 
is not a Celt. Ireland, like all other parts of Europe, was 
also subjected to invasions from the beginning, some of 
which formed colonies in the Island, leaving behind them 
population; the Danes, the Normans, the English them- 
selves going into Ireland during different wars that Eng- 
land made upon that country, settled there, and intermar- 
ried with the Celtic population; so that in the veins of 
the Irish people there is not only Norman and Danish, 
but a vast amount of English blood. The Irish, there- 
fore, are not pux-ely Celtic. Nevertheless, I will admit 



62 LECTURE BY 

that they are preponderantly Celtic, while the English 
are preponderantly Teutonic. The French are a repre- 
presentative of the Celtic races of Europe, though they 
are not, of course, pure Celts any more than these other 
peoples. But the Frenchman represents more the Celt 
than the Teuton or the Norman, and may serve, there- 
fore, as the typical Celt under conditions not altogether 
unfavorable. The French are considered, I believe, by 
impartial judges, to be the most civilized people in 
Europe to-day. The masses of the people are more in- 
dustrious, more thrifty, more intelligent, more economi- 
cal than the masses of the English people. If you wish 
to know whether this is true, take the testimony of John 
Stuart Mill. Not only is this the case, but the French- 
man has shown himself capable of what ma}'" be consid- 
ered 

THE HIGHEST MODEEIN" CULTURE. 

In France there is a vast population of thrifty, saving, 
hard-working poor men; whereas in England the lower 
classes are stolid, ignorant, degraded, extravagant, given 
to all manner of coarse vices, incomparably below the 
same class of Frenchmen. Not only is this true, but no 
people have shown a more earnest love of liberty than 
the French. Their political liberty has not been as great 
as that of Englishmen, owing to accidental causes. The 
surrounding sea has protected England from stronger 
neighbors, and, therefore, she has not been compelled to 
create a great standing army — has not been compelled to 
turn all the national genius and energy toward military 
development. She has been able to devote herself to 
the improvement of her commerce, and the develop- 
ment of her manufacturing interests, and the giving of 
greater possibilities of successful enterprise to her peo- 
ple. Whereas, the Continental nations of Europe stand 
armed with immense bodies of trained soldiers, forced to 
hold themselves in this warlike attitude to protect them- 
selves against one another. I doubt not that the tyranny 
that exists to-day in Germany and France — for, though 
there is a Republic in France, there is a vast amount of 



BISHOP SPALDING. 63 

political injustice, tyranny, and oppression there, also — is 
due, in great measure, to this cause. A military state 
tends naturally and inevitably towards tyranny. With 
this drawback, the French are as free as the English. 
They have shown as great love of liberty, and they have 
proclaimed through the earth the priceless value of Lib- 
erty more than any other people; and. I hold that the 
modern democratic liberty which is so prized, which 
has so developed the wonderful national prosperity of 
this country, is more directly traceable to France and to 
French influence than to any other one national cause. 
Therefore, you will perceive at once that the Celtic char- 
acter will not offer a sufficient explanation of the Irish 
difficulty. Each race has its better endowments and its 
feeble points. There is no reason why the Celt should 
not develop as high a civilization as the Teuton. This 
going back to the question of race, therefore, is intended, 
first, to confuse the point at issue; and, secondly, it is 
absolutely unsatisfactory. It proves nothing. It shows 
that some other explanation must be found. 

I shall not do more than allude to the other cause sa- 
signed, viz : that it is the Catholic faith of the Irish peo- 
ple that makes them poor and unprogressive. There are, 
for instance, France and Belgium, Catholic nations. I 
think there is no other people in Europe more indus- 
trious, more thrifty, more contented, freer, better condi- 
tioned every way, than the Belgians; and certainly there 
is no country in Europe more Catholic than Belgium. 
Why, then, if the Catholic religion has not had this tend- 
ency in other countries, should it in Ireland? But, my 
brethren, it would lead me too far to enter fully into all the 
arguments which would show you that the very fountain- 
head of our modern civilization, of our literature, of the 
highest philosophy, of all that is best in our social condi- 
tion, is to be sought for in the Catholic Church. I leave 
this question, therefore, with this brief but sufficient ref- 
erence to it. And I come to consider not theories, but 
facts. I will leave out this lying and hypocritical pre- 
tense stamped upon all English Protestant literature, and 
consider things as they are. 



64 LECTUEE BY 

England is twice as large as Ireland. Its population lias 
never been less than twice as great. It naturally, there- 
fore, had it in its power to conquer the weaker Island, 
and it came to pass that England made the conquest of 
Ireland in the latter half of the twelfth century — 700 
years ago and more. For 700 years, then, Ireland has 
been under the dominion, some way or other, of England. 

Let us examine into this history and see whether or not 
it in itself is 

AN ALL-SUFFICIENT EXPLANATION 

of the contrast which I have pointed out to you. 

When England conquered Ireland both countries 
were Catholic. How were the Irish people treated 
by the Anglo-Normans when both were Catholic? 
They were treated as outlaws, and driven beyond the 
pale of law and of human rights. The Irishman was 
looked upon as an enemy. That is the standard expres- 
sion in English history. The Irish Catholic was hunted 
down like a wild beast. He Avas driven into the bogs 
and mountains; raids made upon his fields; his cattle 
carried off; his corn burned; his houses destroyed. His 
only defense became that of warfare. He armed him- 
self; and the whole Irish people turned themselves into 
bands of warriors, so that there began a feud the bitterest 
that can be imagined. All the strong and warlike pop- 
ulation of England were sent into Ireland to drive its 
people to desperation and starvation. 

This is true history. It is not oratory. It is not strong 
speech for effect. It is the history of those three hun- 
dred jeB,rs of Anglo-Norman oppression in Ireland. 

The Irish people during this time were reduced not 
only to utter misery and wretchedness, but they lost 
much of their former civilization; for they were a civil- 
ized people when St. Patrick went to Ireland in the fifth 
centurv. Their country was divided into provinces. 
They had a high King and provincial Kings. They had 
many of the qualities of an enlightened civilization. AU 
this was lost during these bloody wars. Their churches 
Avere burned. They were left without any instruction. 



BISHOP SPALDI^'G. ,65 

They became desperate. Their land had been confis- 
cated, and given to Earls, and Dukes, and all sorts of 
Norman noblemen. 

Now, my friends, upon this came 

A NEW AND A MORE TERRIBLE OPrRESSION. 

After the Catholic Anglo-Normans had done all that it 
Tvas possible to do to degrade the Irish people, to reduce 
them to abject poverty, there came a religious schism. 
In the sixteenth century the English became Protestant, 
and the Irish remained Catholic; so that to the bitter- 
ness of race-hate was added the fanaticism of religious 
hatred. The Irish enemy now became the Popish idola- 
ter, and for a double reason he was to be exterminated. 
The Englishman has never been able to understand or to 
deal honestly and justly by those who are of a different 
blood and a different religion from his own. English 
rule over aliens — over men of other blood and other race, 
— is the most disgraceful, and most infamous, and most 
inhuman that has ever stamped a mark of infamy upon 
national character. Wherever he has gone, famine, star- 
vation, the perishing of whole races have shown that he 
knows no other way of governing men but to reduce 
them to slavery. To this inherent incapacity for ruling 
an alien race was added 

A DEEP HATRED OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION, 

when once he had apostatized from it. There was in 
Anglicanism a more absolute and unmitigated hatred 
for the Catholic religion than in any Protestant sect, ex- 
cept, possibly, the Presbyterians. 

Now began this effort of Protestant England to de- 
stroy Ireland. The English Protestant accusation is, 
they are Irish and they are Catholics, therefore they are 
poor, and wretched, and feeble. We shall see whether 
it is Catholicity and Celtic blood that explains this inde- 
scribable misery. To the wrongs of a past oppression 
there was added a new suffering. Under Elizabeth, 
under James I, under Cromwell and under William III, 
the Irish people were slaughtered, butchered, driven 
5 



6Q LECTURE BY 

from cities and towns, and reduced almost, absolutely to 
the verge of total destruction. Every foot of Irish soil 
was taken out of the hands of Irish Catholics. The 
whole Island, consequently, was literally turned over to 
Protestants and Englishmen. The people were made 
has hardly ever disappeared from Ireland. From the day 
that Protestant England and English Protestants began to 
homeless in their own land. From that day to this, famine 
rule over Irish Catholics, famine has been chronic in the 
land. In the reign of Elizabeth they lived on grass and 
roots. Sometimes they dug up the dead bodies and de- 
voured them. They perished in multitudes, and whilst 
they were dying the young English soldiers went hunt- 
ing for them as people go hunting foxes or wolves, and 
if they killed two or three Irishmen it was as fine sport 
as if they had run down wild animals; and, coming back 
they would give the most glowing accounts of how they 
had hunted down these poor people. And when they 
failed to find the men, they burned or hanged the women 
and children in their houses. It is not I who say this, 
but you will find it in English histories. So it is not 
surprising that they should tell us that the population of 
the Island was reduced to half a million, — probably less — 
God only knows. 

It seems miraculous that an Irish Catholic should be 
left in the world. And so it went on, war after war, not 
only under PJlizabeth and James, but under Cromwell, 
who was still more blood-thirsty and cruel. It was his 
downright purpose to 

DRIVE THE lEISII PEOPLE INTO CONNAUGHT OR HELL 

either to take their Popish idolatry out of their souls, or 
take their souls out of their bodies. He meant honestly 
to do this, and he strove manfully to do it. The most 
atrocious massacres known to civilized warfare occurred. 
His troopers hunted priests, and got the same reward for 
their heads as for wolves. So it went on. Without a 
foot of land, without any commerce or manufactures, 
without any schools, the Irish Catholic was not allowed to 
have any profession, or enter any walk by which a man 



BISHOP SPALDING. 6T 

can gain a livelihood. They were driven away from the 
towns, and forbidden to come within a certain distance 
of them under grave penalties; forbidden to own any- 
thing above a low price, and if any one owned more than 
this, it could be taken away from him upon simple demon- 
stration of the fact. It was made a crime for them to go 
to any school except one built expressly for the purpose 
of destroying their faith. After they had taken away the 
last foot of land, the English introduced that fiendish and 
horrid penal system, which was relaxed only when the 
French Revolution began to flare up and to threaten to 
turn over every throne and topple every crown from every 
royal head in Europe. Only when the wild shout of Lib- 
erty from America was echoed across the ocean, England, 
in the midst of troubles and wars, saw at last that there 
was an absolute necessity for relaxing her hold. Never, 
— and I am in my inmost soul convinced of what I say — 

NEVER HAS ENGLAND DONE AN ACT OP JUSTICE 

or of reparation to Ireland from noble or humane motives. 
Never! I don't, in my heart, believe now that the aver- 
age English public opinion holds that the Irish are 
worthy of justice, or mercy, or leniency. 

There came into existence that penal code which made 
ignorance, poverty, and slavery inevitable. The Irish 
people were bound by Protestant England with a triple 
chain, and they were held fast for two centuries — let us 
say down to '98. That penal code drove every Irish 
Catholic from all sorts of trades and liberal professions, 
from the owning of a house or field, from any possible 
way of making a living, except by becoming a tenant-at- 
will of the English landlords. Thus they were made by 
law subject to the whims of those aristocrats who were 
their traditional enemies, who are the worst class of ty- 
rants that ever cursed the human race. This state of 
things became fixed and chronic in Ireland. The people, 
in order not to starve outright, settled upon little patches 
of land. They became the most rural population in 
Europe. The poorest land was given to them. What 
was the necessary result? It was that the Irish Catholics 



68 LECTURE BY 

REMAINED IN IGNORANCE AND BEGGARY 

remained in slavery — there, was an Irish Parliament, but 
no Catholic Irishman was there ; no man was there who 
had received a Catholic vote. There were juries, but no 
Catholic ever sat upon the jury. The Lords were secure 
in putting to death, or murdering, or outraging any Cath- 
olic man or woman. They were without law or protec- 
tion. Now there was in this state of things no hope of 
progress. Their tyrants made it a crime for a Catholic 
to know anvthing, and then they turned around and said : 
Why, these ignorant Catholics! Great God, is it possible 
to understand the blighting and degrading influence of 
prejudice ; how it warps the judgment, and hardens the 
heart? The English Protestants say: " These Irish are 
poor; they are in rags; they are ignorant. See how 
the Catholic Church degrades the people. See what the 
poor Celt is." Hypocrisy deeper than hell. All that the 
Irish Catholic could do was to keep from starvation. He 
was not allowed to improve his surroundings. He would 
be turned out upon the road at once, or his rent so raised 
that it would be a warning not to again undertake any- 
thing of the kind. 

Since this was the condition of the whole population 
except the Protestant oligarchy, do you not at once 
understand why famine is chronic in Ireland ? To be 
above danger of starvation a man must be able to save 
something. Otherwise, if the crop fails, or any misfor- 
tune befalls him, he is at the mercy of hunger. Hence, 
from the day of Elizabeth, famine has rarely been ab- 
sent from Ireland. 

All through the eighteenth century the piteous cry 
of starving multitudes is heard. In 1727 thousands of 
families were driven from their homes by hunger. In 
1734 the mass of the people were slowly dying. In 
1741 the graveyards were too small to hold the bodies of 
those who had been destroyed by the famine fever. In 
1778 Lord Nugent declared in the House of Commons, 
that the Irish people were suffering all the destitution 
and misery which it is possible for human beings to 



BISHOP SPALDING. 69 

suffer. Nine-tenths of the population had no other 
nourishment than potatoes and water. In 1817 the 
famine fever attacked one million five hundred thousand 
persons — nearly one-half of the population of the Island. 
In 1825, 1826, 1830, 1832, 1838, 1843, 1846, 1850, 1860, 
1861, 1862, and now again in 1880, there is famine in 
Ireland; the people are dying of hunger that the land- 
lords may live in luxury. Great God ! if some Catholic 
nation were doing this — if Italy, or Spain, or France, or 
Belgium, or any Catholic nation on God's earth were 
driving a whole people into famine century after century, 
and decade after decade; a literature more lurid and 
ghastly than the flames of the abyss would grow out of it. 

THE VERY HEAVENS WOULD RESOUND WITH INDIGNATION. 

It would be impossible for that nation to exist; and yet, 
there it is, stamped in blood — stamped as in outlines as 
marked as the gaunt, bony finger of a starving man — upon 
English Protestant history. And they talk of liberty, 
and talk of fair play, and bring up their make- shifts of 
arguments. They say it is the intemperance of the peo- 
ple. Great God ! suppose it was — which is a lie, for the 
Irish are not more intemperate than the English — sup- 
pose it was, who has made them so? Does not modern 
science teach that drunkenness is often a disease; if you 
bring a man to live on starvation food, if you cut off his 
allowance, and reduce his nerve power, he will be driven 
to drink. 

England began to do some slight justice to Ireland at 
the end of the last century; and it would be very easy 
for me to show you how she came to do this justice, just 
when she herself was most straitened and alarmed, and 
was compelled to this good deed. From the day she be- 
gan to strike off the first link of the infamous penal chain 
there has been a little progress made now and again. 
The people have never gone back, but they have gone 
forward greatly. The Catholics have been emancipated 
before the law. All the common rights and privileges 
of citizens have been made theirs. This, of course, is a 
vast gain. It gives them the opportunity of education, 



70 LECTURE BY 

of acquiring an independence, other things being favora- 
ble. The emancipation of '29 is to Irish Catholics what 
the victory of Constantine at the Milvian Bridge was to 
the early Christians. Little by little other improvements 
have been made. 

The abolition of the Established Church in Ireland 
was undoubtedly a great and beneficent measure. A 
more odious sham cannot be imagined than this estab- 
lishment of a Church which had no members; this levy- 
ing of tithes from a Catholic people to support Protes- 
tant ministers who had no flocks. 

The plague spot in the social condition of the Irish 
people to-day, is the system of land-tenure, which is 
founded upon confiscation and perpetuates the fatal an- 
tagonism between the proprietors and the tillers of the 
soil. English legislation on this subject, during the last 
few years, has served hardly any other purpose 
than to show more clearly the urgent necessity of 
finding some remedy for this radical evil. Irishmen can 
never be contented or happy so long as the national 
prosperity is blighted by a state of things which leaves 
the land in the hands of men who are the enemies of 
the people, and who, while they enjoy the most excep- 
tional privileges, shirk all the duties and responsibilities 
of their position. Tenancy-at-will, it is true, no longer 
exists ; but rack-renting, which is hardly a less evil, still 
remains as an insuperable obstacle to the improvement 
of the condition of the tenant-farmers; and so long as the 
present state of things continues, periodical famines will 
decimate the people and fill the world with clamor 
against English heartlessness and tyranny. 

It is easy to suggest remedies, but it is still easier to 
find objections to all suggestions which conflict with our 
interests and desires; and it is simjDly a matter of course 
that English statesmen should not lack reasons for con- 
tinuing the present nefarious Irish land-system. That 
it is possible to effectively change this system without 
doing injustice to the landlords, is admitted; that until 
something of this kind is done, Ireland will neither be 
tranquil nor prosperous, is manifest. And yet, since I 



BISHOP SPALDING. 71 

have no desire to cherish a delusion, I must say frankly 
that I have no hope that other than palliative measures 
will be adopted, for a longtime yet to come. 

Callous as Englishmen are to the opinions of foreign- 
ers, they cannot but feel the deep disgrace which has fal- 
len upon the English name, in consequence of the un- 
speakable wrongs which their heartless and stupid tyr- 
anny has inflicted upon the people of Ireland; and if 
Ireland alone was concerned in this question of land re- 
form, an effective remedy, I believe, would, at last, be 
applied. There is, however, an obstacle, which, at pres- 
ent, forbids ue to hope that Irish grievances will be re- 
dressed; and it is this — the English land-system and the 
Irish land-system are but different forms of the same in- 
stitution, and must stand or fall together. A radical 
change in the land-tenure of Ireland would be the great- 
est possible blow to the power of the English aristocracy, 
for it would inevitably drive the liberal and popular 
party into agitations for similar reforms in England; and 
thus precipitate, in an alarming manner, that double 
question, which England will one day have to meet — and, 
sooner or later, solve, but which she is resolved to ad- 
journ to the latest possible hour — the radical reform of 
her land-system and the dis-establishment of the Angli- 
can Church. 

I believe Ireland's struggles and conflicts, her undying 
hope, her patient belief in a better future, is destined to 
bring these reforms about gradually, and thereby the 
Irish people will confer the greatest benefit upon the peo- 
ple of England, — will heap upon their heads burning 
coals of fire by returning good for evil, by giving them in 
blessings what they have received in curses. 

In the meantime, my friends, it is our duty to do all 
that is possible to save from death those who are now 
famishing, and certainly it is most consoling to all of us 
to witness here in the United States, irrespective of race, 
or nationality, or religious faith, such an outburst of char- 
ity. I know nothing more beautiful or more reassuring 
in American social life than this immense and inexhaust- 
ible charity. It seems that no calamit}^ can burst forth 



72 LECTUEE BY 

anywhere in the wide world but American hearts are 
touched with sympathy, and American hands are open to 
deal out liberally what God has so generously bestowed 
upon them. I cannot believe that a race in which there 
is such a spirit of love is not a people destined by God to 
go higher and higher, and to approach nearer and nearer 
to the ideals, which should be the common aim of all 
nations. 



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